Editorial: Money’s role in American politics could get even worse

Our nation’s campaign finance laws are a mess. Money has never been so influential in American politics, and it could get worse.

The Supreme Court is set to hear a case about how much money political parties can spend on campaigns in coordination with candidates. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, Vice President JD Vance and others filed a lawsuit in 2022 alleging that the spending limits violate the First Amendment, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Doing away with coordinated spending limits won’t make elections more transparent or civil. This case shows how badly our campaign finance system needs real legislative reform that holds up to constitutional scrutiny.

When a political party, in consultation with a candidate, pays for goods or services like TV ads for that candidate’s campaign, it’s called a “coordinated party expenditure.”

In the sea of U.S. campaign finance regulations, there’s a section that limits this kind of spending. For Senate races, a formula determines the amount. The cap ranges from $127,200 to $3.95 million, according to the FEC. The limit is about $3 million for Texas.

For House races, the cap is $63,600, except in states that have only one representative, for which it is $127,200. If your head hurts, so does ours.

To be clear, those caps don’t cover every aspect of campaign finance, just this one narrow category. Direct contributions like cash or loans, for example, are governed by a different set of limits. And organizations called Super PACs are independent political action committees that can raise unlimited money from businesses, unions and individuals so long as they don’t coordinate with candidates. As we said, it’s a mess.

A lot of the issues with our campaign finance environment stem from the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case. That decision removed limitations on independent corporate expenditures for political purposes. In the decade and a half since, the influence of shadowy megadonors has grown across the country. We continue to believe that Citizens United was improperly decided and that it opened the door to dark money flooding our politics.

That sort of dark money influence has even made it to races as low-profile as a Prosper (Texas) ISD school board election. Two incumbent trustees found themselves facing challengers supported by a mysterious PAC that sent out mailers and text messages advocating for their challengers. There were reports of a telephone survey that made disparaging remarks about the incumbents. The two challengers denied any involvement.

At a small scale, the Prosper incident represents a broader issue the whole United States faces. It’s often difficult — if possible at all — to tell where all the money is coming from. And there is so much of it that democracy is warped.

Whatever the Supreme Court decides about coordinated party expenditures, the need for tighter restrictions, stronger accountability and more transparency has never been greater.

—The Dallas Morning News