One thing almost every American agrees on
If you’re anything like me, when election season rolls around, and you’re inundated with just a ridiculous volume of mail, TV, and digital ads, you start wonder — who’s paying for all this #!%@?
So often (and seemingly more often with every passing year), the name on the screen isn’t just a candidates, but something like “Americans for a Better Future” or “Bright America” (kidding). It sounds nice, but it tells you absolutely nothing about whose money is behind the message.
This is what people call “dark money”. It is money used to influence our elections by groups — mostly 501(c)(4) nonprofits and shell companies — that don’t have to tell the public where their cash comes from. In the last election, this reached a level that should worry every voter.
A Record-Breaking Problem
In the 2024 federal elections, dark money groups spent a record $1.9 billion. To put that in perspective, that is nearly double the $1 billion spent in 2020. Since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, these groups have poured over $4.3 billion into our elections.
Wealthy special interests use these groups to spend huge amounts of money in secret. They often do this by giving money to “social welfare” nonprofits, which are not required to disclose their donors. Then, those orgs hand the cash over to super PACs, who DO have to disclose their donors… but the donor it discloses is the name of the group with anonymous donors (e.g. “Americans for a Better Future”), rather than the real-life people who actually put up the money.
In 2024 alone, these “shadow” groups gave $1.3 billion to super PACs. This makes it almost impossible for a regular voter to trace the money back to the original source.
The “80% Issue”
Even though the government hasn’t fixed this yet, the American people are very clear about what they want. A nationwide survey found that 83% of likely voters support requiring public disclosure of contributions to organizations that spend money on elections.
Nearly everyone across the political spectrum agrees:
Whether you look at men (87%), women (80%), people over age 50 (86%), or those under 50 (80%), the support for knowing who is paying for political ads is overwhelming.
Why Transparency Matters
When money is secret, it opens the door for corruption and “pay-to-play” politics. We’ve seen several examples where the system is being abused:
Shadow Groups: A group called “45Committee” spent $38 million in 2016 to help elect Donald Trump but allegedly refused to register as a political committee to keep its donors’ names secret.
Foreign Influence: One foreign billionaire allegedly used his daughter as a “straw donor” to funnel $3.5 million to a super PAC while he was seeking a presidential pardon. As a foreign national, he was legally banned from donating himself.
Buying Access: Major political donors are being rewarded with high-level government jobs in the Cabinet or as ambassadors. Some experts warn this allows wealthy interests to protect their own financial goals at the expense of regular people.
The Breakdown of Enforcement
Right now, the agencies that are supposed to watch over our elections — the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — are doing almost nothing to stop this. The FEC requires a majority vote to act, but it routinely “deadlocks,” meaning it fails to even investigate when groups clearly break the rules.
At the same time, the IRS has been “paralyzed” by budget cuts and a culture of fear after past political scandals. Congress even passes a “rider” every year that prevents the IRS from making new rules to stop nonprofits from acting as secret political funnels.
The Watchdog Fighting Back
Since the government isn’t acting, our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is stepping up. Among their critical roles in pushing back on abuses of power, CLC uses the law to fight for your right to know. They go to court to force secret money groups to reveal their donors and help write the laws that would end dark money for good. They are on the front lines making sure our democracy isn’t for sale. We’re proud to fuel their work — will you join us?
What Can We Do?
The solution is a bill called the DISCLOSE Act. This law would:
Follow the Money: Require any group spending money on politics to list the names of anyone who gives them more than $10,000.
Trace the Source: Create a “trace back” system to find the original person who gave the money, even if it passed through many different groups.
Name the Donors: Require political ads to list the group’s top three donors right on the screen so you know exactly who is talking to you.
Call your member of Congress and U.S. Senators and remind them this is one of the most popular bills they’ll ever vote for!
This is a issue in both of our major political parties’ funding ecosystems — and rather than race each other to a solution, our leaders have raced themselves to the bottom. Voters have a right to know who is trying to influence their vote and their government. It is time for Congress to listen to the 80%+ of Americans who want to bring our elections out of the shadows. We all deserve the light.