Bipartisan group of former elected officials urges court to take seriously corruption concerns associated with large super PAC contributions

“Large super PAC contributions are one of the biggest threats to the integrity of American democracy,” warn a bipartisan group of former elected officials in an amicus brief filed yesterday with the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

These former lawmakers go on to stress that “contribution limits on super PACs are not only constitutionally permissible; they are necessary to preserve the integrity of representative self-government.”

This legal brief from two dozen members of Issue One’s ReFormers Caucus — 12 of whom served in public office as Democrats and 12 of whom served in public office as Republicans — comes as the First Circuit is set to review a legal challenge to a ballot measure passed last November by nearly 75% of voters in Maine that sought to cap contributions to super PACs at $5,000 per year.

The signatories include several luminaries who worked tirelessly to pass the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, including former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), former Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), and former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). That law banned national political party committees like the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee from accepting unlimited contributions from corporations, labor unions, and wealthy individuals in the aftermath of major scandals.

This bipartisan group of ReFormers Caucus members say Maine voters deserve to be heard when they raise concerns about large super PAC contributions posing a risk of corruption and the appearance of corruption, aptly noting that if the First Circuit Court of Appeals strikes down the Maine ballot measure, that would be substituting “judicial speculation for the people’s own democratic determination.”

The former elected officials warn that “the risk of corruption associated with super PAC contributions is not hypothetical.” Their brief cites corruption cases involving money flowing through super PACs to benefit the likes of former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ), former Speaker of the House of Ohio Larry Householder (R-OH), and former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, among others.

Indeed, new polling released this week by Issue One and conducted this month by YouGov found that 79% of Americans said that large independent expenditures by wealthy donors and corporations in elections give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. The same poll found that 76% of Americans said the appearance of wealthy donors or corporations gaining influence over or access to elected officials “causes me to lose faith in this democracy.”

In their new legal brief, these ReFormers Caucus members also caution that politicians cannot realistically ignore super PACs, which have been a prolific force in elections over the past 15 years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision and a lower court ruling known as SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission paved the way for the creation of super PACs.

“Lawmakers are forced to court these groups as a form of political insurance — voting and acting with an eye toward the donors who can make or break their careers,” write these former elected officials. “The result is policy skewed toward elite funders and away from constituents.”

According to OpenSecrets, independent expenditures by super PACs accounted for less than $63 million in spending during the 2010 election cycle — accounting for about 2% of all spending in federal elections.

By the 2024 election cycle, super PACs collectively spent more than $4.1 billion on independent expenditures targeting federal candidates — accounting for about 28% of all spending in federal elections.

And according to the Brennan Center for Justice, donors contributing $5 million or more accounted for more than 75% of all presidential super PAC receipts during the 2024 election cycle.

Such facts led the former lawmakers to conclude in their brief that “this is not a story of more speech; it is a story of concentrated power.”

Read the full brief here.

In alphabetical order, the full list of signatories of this new brief are as follows:

• Hon. Charles Boustany, former Republican Congressman from Louisiana
• Hon. Arne Carlson, former Republican Governor of Minnesota
• Hon. Tom Daschle, former Democratic Congressman and Senator from South Dakota and former Senate Majority Leader
• Hon. Byron Dorgan, former Democratic Congressman and Senator from North Dakota
• Hon. Russ Feingold, former Democratic Senator from Wisconsin
• Hon. Dick Gephardt, former Democratic Congressman from Missouri and former House Majority Leader
• Hon. Jim Gerlach, former Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania
• Hon. Dan Glickman, former Secretary of Agriculture and former Democratic Congressman from Kansas
• Hon. Jim Greenwood, former Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania
• Hon. Paul Hodes, former Democratic Congressman from New Hampshire
• Hon. Bob Inglis, former Republican Congressman from South Carolina
• Hon. Ron Kind, former Democratic Congressman from Wisconsin
• Hon. Mel Levine, former Democratic Congressman from California
• Hon. John McKernan, former Republican Governor and Congressman from Maine
• Hon. Connie Morella, former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and former Republican Congresswoman from Maryland
• Hon. Reid Ribble, former Republican Congressman from Wisconsin
• Hon. Tim Roemer, former U.S. Ambassador to India and former Democratic Congressman from Indiana
• Hon. Claudine Schneider, former Republican Congresswoman from Rhode Island
• Hon. Chris Shays, former Republican Congressman from Connecticut
• Hon. Karen Shepherd, former Democratic Congresswoman from Utah
• Hon. Olympia Snowe, former Republican Senator from Maine
• Hon. Mark Udall, former Democratic Congressman and Senator from Colorado
• Hon. Zach Wamp, former Republican Congressman from Tennessee
• Hon. Tim Wirth, former Democratic Congressman and Senator from Colorado