logoalt Hacker News

mrtesthahtoday at 1:49 AM1 replyview on HN

Citizens United is precisely why we have a majority of politicians following the will of the donor class rather than a majority of actual voters. It’s why we lack universal healthcare, for example, despite 62% of Americans supporting it a year ago, with a similar number supporting raising the minimum wage.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

Regarding the last national election:

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/fift...

The Court’s decision and others that followed shaped the 2024 election to a greater degree than any that came before it. Most notably, Donald Trump substantially trailed Kamala Harris in traditional campaign donations, which are subject to legal limits and must be disclosed. Yet he was able to compensate for this disadvantage by outsourcing much of his campaign to super PACs and other outside groups funded by a handful of wealthy donors. While such groups had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on ads in previous cycles, this was the first time they successfully took on many of the other core functions of a general election presidential campaign, such as door-to-door canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts. Their activities unquestionably would have been illegal before Citizens United.


Replies

terminalshorttoday at 2:00 AM

We didn't have universal health care before CU either. It wasn't included in the ACA, before CU. It failed when Clinton tried in the 90s, and it failed every other time anyone tried before that too. You are just using Citizens United as a bogey man for a policy you don't like. You can complain about Trump all you like, but Harris didn't have much less dark money than he did. And Clinton / Biden had double what Trump did in 2016 and 2020. https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race

show 1 reply