Dan Weiner

Trump boasts of over $1.5B in political funds. How he chooses to spend it could rock the midterms President Donald Trump says he's amassed a collection of campaign funds exceeding $1.5 billion, an unprecedented sum for a lame-duck president.

MAGA Inc., the main super PAC supporting President Trump, has raised $305 million since the 2024 election. “Because there are virtually no restrictions on what super PAC money can be used for, it...can be operated as a slush fund," @danw329.bsky.social told @apnews.com.

Nine Solutions for Political Corruption A new era of anticorruption reform is long overdue.

The challenge as we head into an election year is to offer voters a credible alternative. Among other things, that means putting forward concrete solutions like the reforms we propose here for political corruption in the federal government. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

Executives no doubt feel these Old World-style tribute payments are just the cost of doing business. But this is not how most Americans want the federal government to be running our economy and picking winners and losers.

We are living through a period of unprecedented transactional politics. Companies face pressure to give to the president’s inauguration and other pet projects, like the White House ballroom, even as some are cutting back on more conventional lobbying.

After inauguration gift, Target dials back D.C. lobbying in Trump’s second term The Minneapolis-based retailer spent less on traditional lobbying but about the same if its $1M gift to President Donald Trump’s inaugural fund is counted.

I am always happy to talk to my original hometown paper, the @startribune.com. I was interviewed for this thoughtful piece on the record breaking donations big Minnesota companies made to the president’s inauguration and how their political spending is changing. www.startribune.com/target-lobby...

Pro-Trump Super PAC Raises Record-Breaking $305 Million MAGA Inc. has relied on multimillion-dollar donors to raise an unprecedented amount in support of a lame duck president.

The $305 million raised by the main super PAC supporting President Trump comes almost entirely from megadonors: 96% of its funds are from donors giving $1 million or more.
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Big Money Is Back - The American Prospect The 2026 primaries will likely see even bigger levels of corporate and issue-based PAC spending. But there may be diminishing returns on these investments.

“In the last presidential election, donations from people giving $5 million or more went up exponentially,” mostly motivated by corporate interests, @danw329.bsky.social told @prospect.org. “It seems like we’re on track to see that again” in the 2026 midterms.

Grappling with that problem means reckoning with Buckley and its legacy -- and finally choosing to do something about it.

At the root of our challenges today is Americans' justified sense that government has lost the plot and isn't really working to advance their priorities or make their lives better. The unprecedented concentrated of private wealth and public power is a big reason why.

State Legislatures Can Push Back Against Citizens United State lawmakers can fight the influence of big money in politics by passing trigger laws that would go into effect if the Supreme Court’s misguided ruling is reversed.

Momentum for state-level reforms is also growing. For instance, states should pass ambitious reforms for their own elections with “trigger” provisions that would allow them to go into effect once constitutional jurisprudence changes. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

American Promise’s plan to pass a constitutional amendment. American Promise’s plan to propose and ratify a cross-partisan constitutional amendment that will end the domination of dark and foreign money in politics.

They include a constitutional amendment to return the power to regulate money in elections to Americans and their elected representatives. americanpromise.net/our-plan/#am...

What can be done? We recently put out a report highlighting nine high-impact solutions for political corruption Congress could take up, a number of which deal directly with money in the electoral process. bsky.app/profile/bren...

Buckley kicked off decades of judicial intervention overruling democratically enacted campaign laws, with many unintended consequences that have helped drive public trust in government institutions down to record lows.

Buckley was a sharp break in the evolution of American democracy compared to the rest of the developed world. Most other first-world democracies impose much stricter limits on campaign money in the name of political equality and government integrity.

The Supreme Court decision you usually hear about in this context is Citizens United, but CU mainly just reaffirmed principles first articulated in Buckley, as @mawaldman.bsky.social and I discuss here: bsky.app/profile/bren...

Buckley held that there is a First Amendment right to spend money on political campaigns and the only acceptable justification for limiting that right is to prevent “quid pro quo” corruption (i.e. bribery).

Today is the 50th anniversary of one of the most consequential – and controversial -- Supreme Court decisions of the modern era: Buckley v. Valeo. www.oyez.org/cases/1975/7...

Citizens United, Explained The 2010 Supreme Court decision further tilted political influence toward wealthy donors and corporations.

Sixteen years ago today, #SCOTUS handed down its infamous Citizens United ruling that ignited a rush of money into American politics. This decision has since dangerously expanded the already outsized political power of the wealthiest donors in our elections. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

Trump is running a private equity playbook on Venezuela | CNN Business Trump is running a private equity playbook on Venezuela

“Gunboat diplomacy, coupled with a systematic lack of regard for basic safeguards to prevent self-dealing, is very, very dangerous," says @danw329.bsky.social about Trump's designs on Venezuelan oil.

What Is Political Corruption and What Can We Do About It? It hurts ordinary Americans in concrete ways, and the risk has never been greater given today’s unprecedented mixing of private wealth with political power.

This piece by my colleagues provides an excellent summary of how we got to this point — and what we can do about it. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

It’s not all new—handing out ambassadorships to big donors is a long tradition, for example. But the scale is unprecedented. Collectively it adds up to a major paradigm shift in how we are governed.

Hundreds of Big Post-Election Donors Have Benefited From Trump’s Return to Office Well into his second term, the president and his allies have continued aggressively raising money. Many donors have interests before his administration, The Times found.

Excellent reporting on how donors have benefited after giving to President Trump’s super PAC and other initiatives, like the WH ballroom. Money quote from a fmr WH staffer-turned-lobbyist: “These people are not getting coerced. They are making business decisions.” www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

This was a great conversation, with excellent questions from the callers.

In NRSC v. FEC argument Marc Elias warns of a nationalized fundraising “arms race” if the Court strikes down party coordinated spending limits, one that will weaken many state parties as grassroots organizations. Interesting prediction from someone who has repped one of the major parties for decades

Interesting to see the justices in the NRSC oral argument press Noel Francisco on future challenges to campaign finance law. This is making explicit how the dynamic at the Court works. Each law is considered in isolation, but the reality it’s a progressive chipping away of the rules.

Dark Money Hit a Record High of $1.9 Billion in 2024 Federal Races Spending by groups that do not disclose their donors has increased and become harder to trace.

Exhibit A: www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

Powerful point from Justice Sotomayor in today’s oral argument in NRSC v. FEC: “every time we tinker with Congress’s design [for campaign finance law] we make things worse. Indeed.

The Supreme Court Is Poised to Revive a Key Feature of Nixon-Era Corruption The justices will hear arguments on Tuesday in NRSC v. FEC, a case cooked up by the GOP itself.

On 12/9, SCOTUS is set to weigh in on a campaign finance policy limiting how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates. But evaluating policy is Congress's job, not the Court's, @danw329.bsky.social told @slate.com.

A New Era of Crony Capitalism Washington hasn’t seen graft like this for at least a century.

Trump’s net worth has grown by $3 billion since he took office. That’s not a coincidence.

In President Trump’s second term, the need for action against corruption has never been clearer. Join @danw329.bsky.social and @eepetry.bsky.social for a Reddit AMA: