End Citizens United
In 2010 the Supreme Court decided Citizens United v. FEC. The Court's official summary of the ruling says "the Government may not suppress political speech based on the speaker's corporate identity."[1] In practice, it wiped out almost all limits on outside spending and ushered in super PACs, groups that can raise and spend without limit.[2]
Fifteen years after the ruling, a handful of very rich people play an even bigger role in our elections than they did in 2020. The Brennan Center found that in 2024, donors who gave $5 million or more to presidential super PACs spent more than twice as much as they did in 2020. One donor, Elon Musk, gave at least $277 million to two super PACs. More than $1 billion came from sources that didn't have to say who they were.[2]
When a few people can spend that much, the people running for office learn whose calls to return. Voters in both parties see it. In 2018, 77% of Americans said there should be limits on how much individuals and groups can spend on campaigns, including 71% of Republicans.[3]
Because the Court made this a constitutional ruling, fixing it at the root takes a constitutional amendment: two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then three-fourths of the states.[4] That's a long road. So start it. Pass the amendment through Congress and send it to the states.
Mail every voter a ballot
Voting shouldn't mean taking unpaid time off and standing in line for hours. Eight states (California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington) and Washington, D.C., already conduct their elections mostly by mail, sending every active registered voter a ballot.[5] Voters fill it out at the kitchen table, look up what's on it, and send it back or drop it off. Congress should guarantee every voter in the country that option in federal elections.
The objection: "Mail voting invites fraud"
The evidence says otherwise. MIT's Election Data and Science Lab, which studies this, says "documented instances of fraud related to VBM are rare" and that there is "no reason to believe that fraud is more common in VBM states."[6] The mail-voting states run from Utah to California.
Sources
- Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), syllabus (Cornell Legal Information Institute). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html
- Brennan Center for Justice, "Fifteen Years Later, Citizens United Defined the 2024 Election," January 2025. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/fifteen-years-later-citizens-united-defined-2024-election
- Pew Research Center, "Most Americans want to limit campaign spending, say big donors have greater political influence," May 8, 2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/05/08/most-americans-want-to-limit-campaign-spending-say-big-donors-have-greater-political-influence/
- U.S. Constitution, Article V (Cornell Legal Information Institute). https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlev
- National Conference of State Legislatures, "Table 18: States With Mostly Mail Elections," updated August 7, 2026. https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-18-states-with-all-mail-elections
- MIT Election Data and Science Lab, "Voting by mail and absentee voting." https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/voting-mail-and-absentee-voting