Open Caucus Money Hunt

How Citizens United Opened the Gates to Corporate Control

In January 2010, a seemingly dry legal case slipped through the Supreme Court, Citizens United v. FEC. 

To most people at the time, it probably sounded like another tedious argument over obscure election rules. But quietly, with the stroke of a pen, the Court redrew the balance of power in America. And not in the people’s favor.

Until then, the Federal Election Campaign Act made it illegal for corporations to pour their general treasury funds into electioneering — meaning, companies couldn’t spend freely to sway your vote through ads, videos, or “independent” campaigns. The idea was simple: elections belonged to citizens, not companies. The Act protected the marketplace of ideas from being bought and sold to the highest bidder.

Citizens United shattered that protection.

The Court ruled that corporate spending on independent political messaging, anything not directly given to a candidate, was now protected “free speech.” The government could no longer prevent corporations (or unions) from spending limitless sums to influence elections. To the Court, a company’s voice and an individual citizen’s voice were one and the same under the First Amendment.

But in reality, they weren’t even close.

The decision ignored the basic truth that corporations are not citizens in any meaningful sense. They are tools for accumulating wealth. Machines built to maximize profits. Giving them the same speech rights as people was like handing a megaphone to a giant and telling the rest of us to whisper louder if we wanted to be heard.

The Austin v. Michigan precedent had recognized the danger of allowing “immense aggregations of wealth” to distort political debate. Citizens United overturned that. It allowed corporate money (money amassed without any public mandate or democratic endorsement) to flood into our elections, shaping which voices rose and which were drowned out.

And it worked exactly as the critics feared.

In the years since, American politics has become increasingly dominated by Super PACs and “dark money” groups. Campaigns that once depended on the support of voters now lean heavily on the favor of billionaires and corporate interests. Policies that once tried to balance the needs of workers, families, and communities now bend, often invisibly, to the priorities of the wealthy few.

The middle class? It’s been quietly gutted.

Wages have stagnated while corporate profits have soared. Workers shoulder rising healthcare, education, and housing costs while corporate tax burdens shrink. Small businesses, once the backbone of American innovation and self-reliance, are crushed under monopolistic giants who can spend whatever it takes to drown competitors in lobbying and marketing.

All while everyday people are told that if they don’t like it, they should “vote harder” against candidates backed by millions of dollars in corporate-funded ads.

The ruling didn’t just open the door to corporate influence. It blew the door off its hinges, tore down the walls, and installed a private road straight into the heart of American government.

The Founders envisioned a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Citizens United twisted that vision into something else:
A government of the corporations, by the lobbyists, for the shareholders.

And the cost has been enormous. Not just in dollars, but in the loss of political agency, economic security, and the shared belief that democracy is supposed to mean something.

The fight now isn’t just about better candidates or smarter campaigns. It’s about reclaiming the basic promise that power belongs to people and not to the companies that sell to them.

Because if we don’t, we will continue to live in a country where speech is free… but only if you can afford it.