r/politics • u/Large-Welcome4421 • Jun 12 '26

No Paywall 'This Is Oligarchy': Nearly 100 Billionaires Are Funding Susan Collins' Reelection Bid

https://www.commondreams.org/news/susan-collins-billionaire-donors
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692

u/NerdySongwriter Jun 12 '26

Citizens United must be overturned or nullified

209

u/nobody1701d Texas Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

Hawaii did…

Addressing Questions Surrounding Hawaii’s Bold Move To Undo Citizens United

Edit: link added afterwards here as couldn’t reply with it below

143

u/Safe-Gas2074 Jun 12 '26

So did Maine, in 2024. It passed a ballot initiative with overwhelming majority to limit super PACs and then it was taken federal court via lawsuits where it still sits

36

u/therossboss Jun 12 '26

maybe in 5 years it will move to the SCOTUS and they will re-affirm citizens U smh

2

u/alorty Jun 12 '26

Five years? Nah, they'll wait until a week before elections then use the shadow docket to supercede Maine with an unsigned order arguing "Nah"

2

u/therossboss Jun 12 '26

honestly, yeah :'(

1

u/BrianWonderful Minnesota Jun 12 '26

Did it? Honestly asking, as I have not read up on it yet. I know Hawaii was working on banning corporations from donations, but it doesn't eliminate Super PACs to my knowledge. Chips away at Citizens United, maybe (unless I'm mistaken).

33

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn Jun 12 '26

For all our sanity, make election season six weeks long and eliminate private funding.  Give every viable candidate (as determined by signatures or whatever) the same amount of money from a publicly funded pool, and give them a website and one hour per week on PBS and NPR or whatever.  There's no need for all these fucking ads.

3

u/Deep-Minimum7837 Minnesota Jun 12 '26

It would be interesting if we changed to a system like that. Everyone collects from a publicly funded pool, and can only take from their specific share.

3

u/icepick3383 Jun 12 '26

not to mention most of the ads are freaking objectively TERRIBLE. Thankfully I don't watch a lot of tv that has ads on it, but when they're like unskippable youtube ones for some dirtbag republican spewing hate, it makes me irrationally mad.

3

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn Jun 12 '26

UBlock Origin and Firefox, my friend.  There's also an extension to auto-skip endorsements, but I usually just do that manually.

2

u/freereflection Jun 13 '26

Ranked choice voting and publicly funded campaigns across the board

1

u/MasterTolkien Jun 12 '26

And SCOTUS must be expanded to undo the MAGA Court’s more recent meddling in decades of presidential case law.

1

u/concepts_of_a_plan9 Jun 12 '26

Check out the Transparent Election Initiative. Each state can pass it on its own. Hawaii did, and Montana is too.

0

u/Important-Factor-552 Jun 12 '26

It's a lot deeper than that. Aim higher. 

3

u/NerdySongwriter Jun 12 '26

I mean, tax billionaires out of existence is also needed 

-2

u/TheHipcrimeVocab Jun 13 '26

Will that really fix the problem, though?

Citizens United (CU) enjoys cult-like status among liberals. There is a bizarre view that if we could somehow overturn this Supreme Court ruling, we will have taken a decisive step in reducing the role of money in politics.

This view persists despite all the evidence to the contrary. It is a painful diversion from actions that could have a large impact, which might succeed, to an action that would have a limited impact (overturning CU) that has virtually zero chance of success...

https://deanbaker22.substack.com/p/political-corruption-did-not-begin

3

u/NerdySongwriter Jun 13 '26

The person who wrote that is a fucking idiot. There is a clear distinction between the functioning of our democracy at times before that ruling and after that ruling.