Election experts share concerns about the midterms

I know you've written about campaign finance, and the spending in this election is truly unprecedented by individuals.

We've seen reporting that Elon Musk has pumped 276 million into the midterms, pro- a figure that's probably out of date by now.

Um, over 150 million has gone through a couple of transactions into the Texas State Senate race.

What's this doing to our democracy, and what can we do about it?

So there's been a real sea change since the United States Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case in 2010.

Some of it is, is legal change, the creation of super PACs.

Uh, but even the, the seeds for super PACs, which are independent groups that can raise unlimited sums from individuals, corporations, and unions, even the seeds for that were planted in a 1976 case called Buckley versus Valeo.

But something has changed psychologically on the part of big donors in that they're no longer shy about putting their money into elections.

And so just to give you some statistics, the first donor who gave at least $100 million to groups in a federal election, uh, was Sheldon Adelson back in, in 2018.

We only had one or two people or couples in this category.

$100 million, just an ob- obscene amount of money for one person to be able to, to give an election.

By the 2024 elections, we had nine individuals and couples who fit into that category, and Elon Musk set the record with almost $300 million in spending.

I think he's likely to exceed that in a midterm election, which is even more astounding when typically the spending is much lower than in a presidential election year.

It's a fundamentally, uh, unfair system in which we allow the wealthiest of Americans to have outsized influence, not only over who's elected by increasing the chances that, uh, the candidates they support will be elected thanks to all of the, the campaign dollars, but also outsized influence over what elected officials are going to do once they're in office.

So if you are the recipient of Elon Musk's generosity, you're going to be very solicitous of his interests and what he wants to do.

And if you're on the other side, you might fear doing something that might antagonize Elon Musk for fear that he could unleash really astronomical sums against you.

And so the system, we might call it corruption, it certainly is an unequal system where the wealthiest among us are able to translate their economic power into political power.

And what's the prospect for doing something about it?

The prospects for doing something about it in the short term are quite low because the current regime we have is the product of Supreme Court decisions, uh, especially over the last 20 years.

We have a very conservative Supreme Court that on campaign finance issues takes a very libertarian view of the First Amendment and sees most limits on money in politics as unconstitutional, as a violation of the rights of free speech and association.

So how could you change that? You either have to change the Constitution or you have to change the Supreme Court.

Both of those things are very difficult to do.

I actually think it would be probably easier to change the Supreme Court than to get through a constitutional amendment, which requires supermajorities in both the House and Senate and supermajority of states to approve a, a constitutional amendment.

So I think there's going to be a lot of pressure if Democrats retake the House and the Senate and the presidency in 2029 to try to deal with some of the issues related to our democracy, from campaign finance to partisan gerrymandering to the Supreme Court's evisceration of the Voting Rights Act.