Citizens United and Unlimited Election Spending

What Is Citizens United v. FEC

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that lets corporations, labor unions, and other groups spend unlimited money on election ads, as long as they do not coordinate with candidates. The 5-4 ruling held that this spending is political speech protected by the First Amendment. It struck down the federal ban on corporate and union “independent expenditures” paid from their general treasuries.

The ruling rested on two assumptions. Independent spending would stay separate from candidates, and voters would see who paid for it. The Brennan Center argues that neither held. It reports that super PACs “usually work in tandem” with candidates and are now “integral to most major campaigns,” and that much of their money comes through groups that do not name their donors.

“A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”

Justice John Paul Stevens, dissent in Citizens United v. FEC (2010)

How the Case Reached the Supreme Court

The law at issue was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, known as BCRA or McCain-Feingold. Federal law already barred corporations and unions from paying for “express advocacy,” ads that tell viewers to vote for or against a candidate, out of their general treasuries. BCRA widened the ban to cover “electioneering communications”: any broadcast, cable, or satellite ad that names a federal candidate within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election (majority opinion).

Corporations and labor unions could still speak through political action committees. A PAC is a separate fund built from voluntary donations by employees or members, and it can only raise money in limited amounts. The Supreme Court had upheld this setup twice. Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) allowed limits on political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity, and McConnell v. FEC (2003) upheld BCRA’s electioneering rules.

Hillary: The Movie and a $1.2 Million Offer

Citizens United is a conservative nonprofit corporation with an annual budget of about $12 million, most of it from individual donors and a small share from for-profit corporations. In January 2008, it released Hillary: The Movie, a 90-minute documentary about then-Senator Hillary Clinton, who was running in the Democratic presidential primary. Most of the people interviewed in the film were “quite critical” of her, Justice Kennedy later wrote.

The group wanted a wider audience. In December 2007, a cable company had offered, for a payment of $1.2 million, to make the film free to viewers on a video-on-demand channel called “Elections ‘08.” Citizens United also made TV ads promoting the film (majority opinion).

Fearing civil and criminal penalties, the group sued the Federal Election Commission. It argued that the corporate spending ban and BCRA’s disclosure requirements were unconstitutional as applied to the film and its ads. The question was whether the film counted as the “functional equivalent of express advocacy,” a test the Court had set in 2007. The district court denied its request for a preliminary injunction and then granted the FEC summary judgment.

The Supreme Court heard the case twice. After the first argument on March 24, 2009, the justices asked the parties whether they should overrule Austin and part of McConnell, and heard the case again on September 9, 2009. A dispute over one film became a ruling on corporate political speech nationwide.

Where “Money Is Speech” Comes From

Citizens United is one link in a chain of rulings on campaign finance laws that began in 1976 and is still growing.

1976. In Buckley v. Valeo, a challenge to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, the Court drew the line that still governs. Limits on direct contributions to candidates survived because they guard against “quid pro quo” corruption, meaning money given in exchange for official action. Limits on independent spending fell as limits on speech.

1978. First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti struck down a Massachusetts ban on corporate spending in ballot-measure campaigns. Justice Kennedy later wrote in Citizens United that Bellotti “reaffirmed the First Amendment principle that the Government cannot restrict political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity.”

1990 and 2003. Austin and then McConnell went the other way for candidate elections, upholding limits on corporate spending.

2010. Citizens United overruled Austin in January. On March 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit applied its logic in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, ruling that “contributions to groups that make only independent expenditures cannot corrupt or create the appearance of corruption” (FEC). Those groups became super PACs.

2014 and 2026. McCutcheon v. FEC struck down the cap on how much one donor could give in total across all candidates and parties, 5-4. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for four justices, and Justice Thomas agreed with the result (Cornell LII). On June 30, 2026, NRSC v. FEC struck down limits on how much party committees can spend in coordination with their own candidates.

What the Supreme Court Decided

The Court split 5-4 on the spending ban and 8-1 on disclosure. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito formed the majority that struck down the spending ban. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. On disclosure, eight justices voted to keep the rules and only Thomas would have struck them.

The First Amendment says Congress “shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech,” and Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion called this law “an outright ban, backed by criminal sanctions,” because it made it a felony for any corporation, including a nonprofit advocacy group, to air an electioneering communication. Laws that burden political speech, he wrote, must survive the strictest test in constitutional law. Speakers who fear prosecution stay silent, and society is then “deprived of an uninhibited marketplace of ideas.” The government also may not pick “certain preferred speakers” over others.

The opinion then narrowed what counts as corruption. The only interest strong enough to justify limits is preventing quid pro quo deals, and “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,” Kennedy wrote. Gaining access to officials does not qualify. “Ingratiation and access, in any event, are not corruption.”

The Court overruled Austin and the part of McConnell that upheld BCRA’s corporate spending ban, holding the ban unconstitutional. It kept BCRA’s disclosure requirements and on-air disclaimers, the “paid for by” lines, because “this transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”

“Starting today, corporations with large war chests to deploy on electioneering may find democratically elected bodies becoming much more attuned to their interests.”

Justice John Paul Stevens, Citizens United dissent (2010)

What Citizens United Did Not Decide

The ruling was about spending, not giving. Limits on direct contributions to candidates were untouched. Kennedy noted that Citizens United “has not made direct contributions to candidates,” and the opinion left the contribution rules standing, including the federal ban on corporate contributions to candidates (majority opinion).

• Disclosure stayed. Eight justices upheld the disclaimer and disclosure rules because they “impose no ceiling on campaign-related activities” and “do not prevent anyone from speaking.”
• Foreign money was set aside. The Court said it “need not reach the question” of whether the government can keep foreign individuals or groups out of American elections. The federal ban on spending by foreign nationals was not part of the case and still stands.
• Super PACs came later. The ruling did not create them. A federal appeals court did, in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, on March 26, 2010.

Does Citizens United Say Corporations Are People?

No. The majority opinion never calls corporations people. It holds that the First Amendment protects the speech itself, so the government cannot restrict political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity. That principle came from Bellotti in 1978, and Citizens United applied it to candidate elections.

Stevens answered that corporations differ from the citizens who own and work for them. Their “personhood” often serves as “a useful legal fiction,” he wrote. “But they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.”

What Is the Difference Between a PAC and a Super PAC?

Citizens United made super PACs possible, and a lower court created them later in 2010. In SpeechNow.org v. FEC (2010), a federal appeals court ruled that outside groups can accept unlimited contributions if they spend independently and never give directly to candidates (Brennan Center).

The only rule that separates a super PAC from a campaign is the ban on coordination. The group can set up a “firewall” between staff who talk to a campaign and staff who make ads, but that is an optional legal safe harbor under FEC rules, not a requirement. The Brennan Center reports that candidate-aligned super PACs “usually work in tandem” with the campaigns they support.

The disclosure rule has a gap that anonymous nonprofits use. A super PAC reports its donors, but a donor can be a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that does not have to name its own funders. The money arrives with a name attached, just not the name of the person who gave it.

The dark money explainer covers how these nonprofits work and what they spend on their own.

Outside Spending Grew More Than Twelvefold

Outside spending in federal elections grew from $338 million in 2008 to $4.22 billion in 2024, more than 12 times as much. The 2008 cycle was the last before Citizens United. Every presidential cycle since has set a record for outside campaign spending, and midterms followed the same climb.

The midterm trend is just as steep. Outside groups spent $69.6 million in the 2006 midterms and $2.03 billion in 2022, about 29 times as much, by OpenSecrets’ count.

Money from groups that hide their donors climbed too. OpenSecrets counted $1.1 billion in dark money contributions to super PACs and other outside groups, plus spending those groups reported, in 2024, up from $144 million in 2010. The Brennan Center uses a broader count that also tracks dark money routed through super PACs, and it found a new record in 2024.

The Brennan Center calls its $1.9 billion figure an undercount, because some kinds of undisclosed spending cannot be tracked at all.

Six Donors Gave Nearly $1 Billion in 2024

Six donors gave more than $100 million each to outside spending groups in 2024, and almost all of it went to groups backing conservatives. Together they gave $978 million. Elon Musk alone gave $290 million.

Billionaire money is concentrated in a few families. One hundred billionaire families put $2.6 billion into 2024 federal elections, about one of every six dollars spent by all candidates, parties, and committees, according to Americans for Tax Fairness, a tax-reform advocacy group. By its count, 70% backed Republicans, 23% backed Democrats, and more than 80% flowed through super PACs.

The same money now reaches state races. The April 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court election cost $100.3 million, the most expensive judicial race in American history, by the Brennan Center’s final tally. Musk’s America PAC spent $12.7 million backing Brad Schimel. In all, $54.1 million backed Schimel and $46.3 million backed Susan Crawford, by the Brennan Center’s table, and Crawford won by 10 points.

The FEC Cannot Enforce the Coordination Ban

The agency that enforces the ban on coordinating with candidates has not been able to act since May 2025. The Federal Election Commission needs four of its six commissioners to open an investigation, levy a fine, or write a rule.

The FEC lost its quorum on May 1, 2025, after Commissioner Allen Dickerson’s term ended at the end of April. Commissioner Trey Trainor left in October 2025. Only two commissioners remain, Shana Broussard and Dara Lindenbaum, according to the FEC. President Trump nominated Ashley Stow and Andrew Woodson on February 11, 2026, but the Senate has not confirmed them, and the FEC still lists only the two sitting commissioners. The agency can still accept filings and answer questions. It cannot act on what it finds.

The weakness predates the shutdown. In the almost 14 years after Citizens United, the FEC opened only “a handful” of investigations into coordination and fined no one, the Brennan Center reported in 2023. The agency levied about the same dollar amount in penalties in 2022 as in 2004, even though federal election spending had more than tripled.

Where Citizens United Stands in 2026

The Supreme Court widened the ruling again in June 2026. In NRSC v. FEC, decided June 30, the Court voted 6-3 to strike down limits on how much national and state party committees can spend in coordination with their own candidates. Before the ruling, a national party could spend $65,300 to $130,600 in coordination with a House candidate. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, and Justice Elena Kagan dissented, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The majority repeated that the Court now recognizes “only one legitimate governmental interest for restricting campaign finances: preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption,” and only of the quid pro quo kind (NRSC v. FEC). The Court said its decision does not address coordination by outside groups, so super PACs still may not coordinate with candidates.

The Maine case turns on a question Citizens United left open. Voters approved a $5,000 cap on donations to these committees with 74.9% of the vote in 2024. A U.S. magistrate judge permanently blocked it in July 2025, and the case is on appeal at the First Circuit.

Montana and Hawaii are testing a different route: corporate law instead of campaign finance law. A corporation exists only because a state charters it, and the state decides which powers the charter grants. Citizens United protected corporate speech rights, and the backers of both measures argue that a state can still decline to grant the power to spend on elections.

Montana voters decide I-194 on November 3. The statutory initiative, known as the Montana Plan, would bar “artificial persons,” including corporations, nonprofits, trade associations, and partnerships, from spending on candidate elections, political parties, or ballot issues, according to the Montana Secretary of State, which certified it for the ballot on August 17, 2026. The Montana Supreme Court declined to rule on its constitutionality on April 1, 2026, because courts do not decide a measure before it qualifies. A separate constitutional initiative on the same idea, CI-135, was approved to gather signatures on April 30, 2026.

Hawaii passed the first such law. Governor Josh Green signed SB 2471, now Act 11, on May 14, 2026, and it takes effect July 1, 2027, by the Holtzman Vogel summary of the bill. The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii sued in June 2026, arguing the law violates the First Amendment and is too vague. A federal judge in Hawaii was set to hear both motions on October 13, 2026, and the Campaign Legal Center and CREW filed a brief defending the law on September 21.

Record local spending does not always win. In New York City’s 2025 elections, independent expenditures reached a record $82.95 million, double 2021, according to Citizens Union. Groups backing Andrew Cuomo spent about $28 million in the general election, and he lost.

State Reforms That Are Working

Federal reform has stalled, but states have shown that disclosure and public financing can pass and hold up in court.

New York’s public financing program cut the big-money share of campaign funding nearly in half in its first cycle. Large donations of $1,000 or more, plus PAC and corporate money, fell from 70% of candidates’ funding in 2020 to 38% in 2024, the Brennan Center found. Small donations and the public money matching them made up 45% of funding, up from 5% for small donations before the program. The state matches the first $50 of a local donation 12-to-1, the next $100 at 9-to-1, and the next $100 at 8-to-1.

By American Promise’s count, half the states have now asked Congress for an amendment on election spending. Idaho became the 25th when its House passed SJM 109 on March 30, 2026. Common Cause, which counts 19 states by its own criteria, says nearly 800 local governments have made the same call. In a 2018 University of Maryland survey, 75% of Americans supported an amendment, including 66% of Republicans and 85% of Democrats.

The Case for the Ruling

The decision’s defenders argue it protects the First Amendment rights of every speaker, not corporations as such. Kennedy’s opinion warned that the logic behind the old ban would let Congress restrict the political speech of media corporations too, since newspapers and networks are also corporations that pile up wealth. “When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought,” he wrote.

Some civil liberties groups agreed with that part. The ACLU has “consistently taken the position” that BCRA Section 203, the electioneering ban, was unconstitutional because it allowed the suppression of core political speech. The ACLU’s position concerned that speech ban, not unlimited spending in general.

Critics of reform also dispute how much the public wants change. David Keating of the Institute for Free Speech called the University of Maryland poll biased, arguing that support would drop if voters knew an amendment “would allow Congress to censor critics and make it more difficult to defeat corrupt incumbents.”

The dissenters and reform groups answer that the ruling’s factual assumptions failed. Stevens argued that corruption reaches beyond explicit bribes to the access and influence that large spending buys. The Brennan Center points to super PACs run in tandem with campaigns and to disclosure gaps the Court did not anticipate.

Not All Political Spending Is Corruption

Not all the spending Citizens United allowed is corrupt, and not every problem in campaign finance traces to the ruling.

• Small donors still matter. Grassroots fundraising powers campaigns in both parties, from presidential races to state legislatures. The concern is concentration, since six donors gave $978 million to outside groups in 2024.
• Money does not always win. The candidate with more money behind him lost Wisconsin’s 2025 Supreme Court race, and Andrew Cuomo lost New York City’s 2025 mayoral race despite about $28 million in outside support.
• The DISCLOSE Act limits no spending. It requires that voters know which groups are paying, and eight justices in Citizens United upheld disclosure rules for that reason.
• The FEC’s failure is separate from the ruling. Vacancies, partisan deadlocks, and weak enforcement disabled the agency, not Citizens United, and a working FEC could enforce the coordination ban without overturning the decision.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Citizens United do?

Citizens United struck down the federal ban on corporations and unions spending their own money on ads for or against candidates, as long as the spending is not coordinated with a campaign. The 5-4 ruling of January 21, 2010 kept limits on direct contributions to candidates and upheld disclosure rules 8-1.

Who voted for Citizens United?

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito formed the 5-4 majority, and Kennedy wrote the opinion. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. On disclosure, only Thomas voted to strike the rules down.

What is the Montana Plan?

The Montana Plan is I-194, a statutory initiative on Montana’s November 3, 2026 ballot. It would bar corporations, nonprofits, trade associations and other entities doing business in Montana from spending on candidate elections, political parties or ballot issues, by limiting the powers the state grants them rather than their speech rights.

Is Citizens United still in effect?

Yes. The ruling has never been overturned. The Court later struck down the cap on a donor’s total giving (McCutcheon v. FEC, 2014) and party coordinated spending limits (NRSC v. FEC, June 30, 2026). Only a constitutional amendment or a future Supreme Court reversal can undo it.

Can Citizens United be overturned?

Congress cannot overturn a constitutional ruling by passing a law. It would take a constitutional amendment, which needs two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and three-fourths of the states, or a new Supreme Court decision.

Does Citizens United allow foreign money in elections?

No. Federal law still bars foreign nationals from spending on American elections. The Court said it did not need to decide whether that ban was allowed, and the ban was not part of the case.

Who is Citizens United, the group?

Citizens United is a conservative nonprofit corporation. When it brought the case, it had an annual budget of about $12 million, mostly from individual donors, with a small share from for-profit corporations.

Why did the ACLU side with Citizens United?

The ACLU argued that BCRA’s ban on electioneering communications allowed the suppression of core political speech. Its stated position concerned that ban on electioneering communications.

What You Can Do

1. Support a constitutional amendment. American Promise counts 25 states with resolutions, and yours may be next. American Promise, Free Speech for People, and Common Cause organize state campaigns.

2. Push for state-level reform. New York showed that public financing cuts the big-money share. Arizona voters passed disclosure with 72% of the vote, and the state’s highest court upheld it. Ask your state legislators what they are doing about campaign finance transparency.

3. Follow the money in your own elections. OpenSecrets tracks federal and state spending. When you see a political ad, look up the group that paid for it.

4. Tell your members of Congress to pass the DISCLOSE Act. The bill (S.3991 in the Senate, H.R.7802 in the House) would require any group spending more than $10,000 on elections to name donors who give $10,000 or more. Both versions were introduced March 4, 2026, and neither has been reported out of committee. Use the letter and call script below.