A recent Washington Post report finds that a mere 10 mega-donor individuals or couples are responsible for a staggering 20 percent of the $1.1 billion that super PACs had raised in the 2016 election cycle by the end of August. Following the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, these groups have been able to raise unlimited sums from individuals and corporations, but this fundraising total far exceeds the $853 million that Super PACs raised for all of 2012—and it doesn’t yet include the last two months of this year’s campaign.
While most mega-donors lean heavily Republican, these top 10 had a mix of people giving to both parties. Chief among them for Democrats was environmentalist hedge-fund founder and Citizens United critic Tom Steyer. His net worth is approximately $1.6 billion, and he had given $38 million by the end of August. Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, topped the list for Republicans, having given a combined $21.5 million. Sheldon Adelson is reportedly the world’s 22nd richest person, with a net worth of $32 billion dollars, roughly 20 times Steyer’s wealth.
Independent Michael Bloomberg, the world’s eighth-richest person with an estimated net worth of $40 billion, has divided his $20.2 million between the two parties and various ballot measures. Conspicuously absent are Charles and David Koch, the two fossil fuel robber barons and frequent progressive boogeymen. However, the two brothers, who are tied for world’s ninth richest at nearly $40 billion each, have built up a massive fundraising network capable of spending hundreds of millions, rather than relying just on their own personal fortune.
Many of the other top-10 mega-donors writing eight-figure checks unsurprisingly come from the world of finance and energy extraction, and it’s pretty clear what they’re getting for their money: a Republican Party completely beholden to their interests on deregulation. And even the Democratic Party often finds it needs these sorts of donors unless it wants to face a massive spending disparity.
Citizens United isn’t responsible for everything wrong with our politics, but letting the ultra-rich dominate the conversation has done a lot of damage when their policy views are far out of sync with the general public’s. If every citizen’s voice should matter equally in a democracy, that simply cannot happen when one donor can write a check for tens of millions while most voters don’t—and many can’t—donate at all. Fortunately, if Democrats win the presidency and Senate in 2016, they are poised to install a new Supreme Court majority that could overturn Citizens United and allow us to start passing some meaningful new campaign finance restrictions.