Can contributions to super PACs be corrupting?
That question is at the heart of a lawsuit being heard next week in federal court in Maine, where two super PACs are challenging a ballot measure passed by 75% of Maine voters in November 2024 that limits contributions to super PACs to $5,000 per year.
Super PACs — which are currently allowed to accept contributions of unlimited amounts and must not coordinate their spending with political candidates — have proliferated at the federal, state, and local levels since two court rulings in 2010 ushered in a new era of big-money politics.
In January 2010, in a case called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that political ads known as independent expenditures — including independent expenditures made by corporations — “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”
Two months later, relying on the logic of Citizens United, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case called SpeechNow v. Federal Election Commission, struck down contribution limits for political action committees focused on making independent expenditures, groups now colloquially known as super PACs.
But in the 15 years since these two rulings, evidence has been mounting that the courts erred in their assumptions about the corrupting influence of big-money contributions to super PACs. At least that’s the argument being made next week in federal court in Maine in defense of the recently passed ballot measure….