Citizens United v. FEC

"Citizens United" redirects here. For the political organization this case is named after, see Citizens United (organization). For other uses, see Citizens United (disambiguation).

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 24, 2009 Reargued September 9, 2009 Decided January 21, 2010
Full case name	Citizens United, Appellant v. Federal Election Commission
Docket no.	08-205
Citations	558 U.S. 310 (more) 130 S. Ct. 876; 175 L. Ed. 2d 753; 2010 U.S. LEXIS 766
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Motion for preliminary injunction denied, 530 F. Supp. 2d 274 (D.D.C. 2008); summary judgment for FEC, 2008 WL 2788753 (D.D.C. July 18, 2008); probable jurisdiction noted, 555 U.S. 1028 (2008).
Holding
The First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and labor unions on the basis of the speaker's identity. Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce was overruled, and McConnell v. FEC was overruled in part. The challenged disclaimer and disclosure requirements were upheld.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor
Case opinions
Majority	Kennedy, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Alito; Thomas (all but Part IV); Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor (Part IV)
Concurrence	Roberts, joined by Alito
Concurrence	Scalia, joined by Alito; Thomas (in part)
Concur/dissent	Stevens, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor
Concur/dissent	Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I, Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) McConnell v. FEC (2003) (in part)

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning campaign finance and the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that the government may not prohibit corporations, including nonprofit corporations, and labor unions from making independent expenditures for political communications on the basis of the speaker's identity. The Court overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and overruled in part McConnell v. FEC (2003), which had upheld restrictions on corporate-funded electioneering communications.

The decision did not invalidate the federal prohibition on corporations making contributions directly to candidates. The Court also upheld the federal law's disclaimer and disclosure requirements for the communications at issue. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito joined it in full; Justice Clarence Thomas joined all but the portion upholding disclosure requirements. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the principal opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor.

The ruling became one of the most prominent and controversial campaign-finance decisions in modern American law. Supporters have characterized it as a protection of political speech regardless of the identity of the speaker, while critics have argued that it increased the political influence available to corporations and wealthy donors. Although the case is frequently discussed in connection with corporate personhood, the Court did not create that doctrine; earlier Supreme Court decisions had already recognized First Amendment protections for corporations. The decision, together with the D.C. Circuit's later decision in SpeechNow.org v. FEC (2010), provided the legal framework for independent-expenditure-only committees, commonly known as super PACs.

In his dissent, Stevens wrote that the decision was "a rejection of the common sense of the American people" and warned that it threatened "to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation". Reactions were sharply divided. Senator Mitch McConnell called the decision "an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights", while President Barack Obama said it "gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington".

Background

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act or BCRA, amended the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). Section 203 generally prohibited corporations and labor organizations from using their general treasury funds for an "electioneering communication". Such a communication was defined as a broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that referred to a clearly identified federal candidate, was publicly distributed within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election, and was targeted to the relevant electorate. A communication was generally "targeted to the relevant electorate" if it could be received by 50,000 or more persons in the relevant congressional district or state; special rules applied to presidential elections.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit advocacy organization, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that advertisements for Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, which was critical of President George W. Bush, constituted prohibited electioneering communications. The FEC dismissed the complaint because the relevant electioneering-communications period had not yet begun and the respondents stated that they did not intend to run advertisements identifying federal candidates during that period.

Citizens United later produced the documentary Celsius 41.11, which criticized both Fahrenheit 9/11 and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. In Advisory Opinion 2004-30, the FEC concluded that Citizens United's proposed broadcast of the film and related advertisements during the 60 days preceding the election would constitute electioneering communications and did not qualify for the statutory media exception. Citizens United therefore could not finance those broadcasts with corporate treasury funds under the law then in force.

Citizens United subsequently produced several additional documentary films. During the 2008 Democratic presidential primary season, it sought to run three television advertisements promoting Hillary: The Movie, a film critical of Hillary Clinton, and to make the film available through DirecTV video on demand. Because Citizens United intended to make the film available within 30 days of several presidential primary elections, it feared that the film would be treated as a corporate-funded electioneering communication that was the functional equivalent of express advocacy. It filed for declaratory and injunctive relief in federal court, challenging both the funding restriction and the applicable disclaimer and disclosure provisions.

District Court proceedings

In December 2007, Citizens United filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the constitutionality of several statutory provisions governing electioneering communications. It asked the court to declare the prohibition on corporate and union funding both facially unconstitutional and unconstitutional as applied to Hillary: The Movie and its 30-second advertisements, and to enjoin the FEC from enforcing the restrictions. Citizens United also argued that BCRA's disclaimer and disclosure requirements were unconstitutional as applied to the film and its advertisements.

In accordance with Section 403 of BCRA, a three-judge panel convened to hear the case. On January 15, 2008, the court denied Citizens United's motion for a preliminary injunction, finding that the organization was unlikely to succeed on the merits because the film was "susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote against Senator Clinton". The court therefore treated the film as the functional equivalent of express advocacy and held that it was not exempt from the corporate-funding restriction. The court also rejected Citizens United's challenge to the disclaimer and disclosure provisions, reasoning that McConnell v. FEC had sustained those requirements and that Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. had not disturbed that portion of McConnell.

On July 18, 2008, the District Court granted summary judgment to the FEC. It held that BCRA prohibited Citizens United from using corporate treasury funds to make Hillary available through video on demand within the relevant 30-day pre-primary periods. The court concluded that the proposed advertisements themselves were not subject to the corporate-funding ban under the FEC's regulatory safe harbor, but it upheld the disclaimer and disclosure requirements applicable to them.

Under BCRA's special judicial-review provisions, Citizens United appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court noted probable jurisdiction on November 14, 2008.

Arguments before the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court first heard oral argument on March 24, 2009. During the original oral argument, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart, representing the FEC, acknowledged in response to questioning that under the government's interpretation of Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a corporation or labor union could be prohibited from using general-treasury funds to publish or distribute a book expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate. Stewart likewise acknowledged that the government's theory could extend to digital distribution of expressly advocative books, including through devices such as the Amazon Kindle, or to a union paying an author to produce such a book.

In a 2017 interview, Kennedy said that "all of us are concerned with money in politics", but recalled that he had been shocked that "the government of the United States ... argued before the Supreme Court ... that if there was an upcoming political campaign ... and a book was being published ... and it was critical of a candidate, that [the government] could stop publication".

According to a 2012 article in The New Yorker by Jeffrey Toobin, the court planned to rule on the narrow question that had originally been presented: May Citizens United show the film? At the conference among the justices after oral argument, the vote was 5–4 in favor of allowing Citizens United to do so. The justices voted the same as they had in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the initial opinion of the court, holding that BCRA allowed the film to be shown. A draft concurring opinion by Justice Kennedy argued that the court should have gone much further. The other justices in the majority agreed with Kennedy's reasoning, and convinced Roberts to reassign the opinion and allow Kennedy's concurrence to become the majority opinion. The senior justice in the minority, John Paul Stevens, assigned the dissenting opinion to David Souter. Souter completed the task shortly before retiring from the court. According to Toobin, Souter's dissent went beyond critiquing the majority to air "some of the Court's dirty laundry", accusing Roberts of having manipulated court procedures to reach his desired result—an expansive decision that changed decades of election law and ruled on issues neither party to the litigation had presented. According to Toobin, Roberts agreed to withdraw the opinion and schedule the case for re-argument. But when he did, the questions presented to the parties were more expansive, touching on the issues Kennedy's opinion had raised.

On June 29, 2009, the Court ordered the parties to reargue the case on September 9 and specifically directed them to address whether it was necessary to overrule Austin and/or McConnell v. FEC to decide the case. The reargument was the first Supreme Court argument attended by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who had replaced Souter in the interim. It was also Solicitor General and future Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan's first argument before the Court as Solicitor General. Former Solicitor General Ted Olson argued for Citizens United. First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams argued for Senator Mitch McConnell as an amicus curiae supporting Citizens United. Solicitor General Elena Kagan argued for the FEC, and former Solicitor General Seth Waxman argued for Senator John McCain and other amici supporting the FEC. Legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky called it "one of the most important First Amendment cases in years".

Opinion of the Court

On January 21, 2010, the Court issued a 5–4 decision. It reversed the District Court with respect to the constitutionality of the federal restrictions on corporate independent expenditures, affirmed the judgment upholding the disclaimer and disclosure requirements, and remanded the case for further proceedings.

Majority opinion

Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. The Court held that the federal prohibition on corporate and union independent expenditures and electioneering communications violated the First Amendment's protection of political speech. Kennedy wrote, "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech." He also wrote that because the First Amendment does not distinguish between media and other corporations, the BCRA restrictions improperly allowed Congress to suppress political speech in newspapers, books, television, and blogs. In discussing the majority's approach, Stevens quoted a line from Justice Scalia's dissent in Austin: "there is no such thing as too much speech."

The Court overturned the 1990 precedent Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which held that a state law that prohibited corporations from using money to support or oppose candidates in elections did not violate the Constitution. The majority rejected Austin's "antidistortion" rationale, under which the government could restrict corporate election spending to prevent the potentially distorting effects of wealth accumulated through the corporate form. It also rejected the argument that the ban was justified by an anticorruption interest. Relying on the distinction between contributions and independent expenditures developed in Buckley v. Valeo, the majority reasoned that independent expenditures do not create the type of quid pro quo corruption that can justify limits on direct contributions. The Court also overruled the part of the 2003 precedent McConnell v. FEC that upheld the BCRA restriction of corporate spending on electioneering communications.

The majority emphasized that First Amendment protection for political speech generally does not depend on the identity of the speaker and noted that earlier cases had recognized First Amendment protection for corporate speech. It rejected a distinction that would permit special protection for media corporations while allowing comparable political speech by other corporations to be prohibited. The opinion relied heavily on Buckley v. Valeo and First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti; in Bellotti, the Court had invalidated a restriction on corporate spending concerning ballot measures. The majority argued that the First Amendment purposely keeps the government from "rationing" speech and interfering in the marketplace of ideas, and it is not up to legislatures or courts to create a sense of "fairness" by restricting speech.

The Court also held that BCRA Sections 201 and 311, which require disclosure of information about the funders of such speech, were valid as applied to the movie advertisements and to the movie itself. The majority upheld disclosure of the sources of election-related expenditures, writing:

...prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether their corporation's political speech advances the corporation's interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are "in the pocket" of so-called moneyed interests ... This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.

Concurring opinions

Chief Justice Roberts wrote a separate concurring opinion "to address the important principles of judicial restraint and stare decisis implicated in this case". Roberts explained why the Supreme Court must sometimes overrule prior decisions. Had prior courts never gone against precedent, for example, "segregation would be legal, minimum wage laws would be unconstitutional, and the Government could wiretap ordinary criminal suspects without first obtaining warrants". Roberts's concurrence cited numerous cases in which the Court had overruled or declined to extend precedent. Ultimately, Roberts argued that "stare decisis... counsels deference to past mistakes, but provides no justification for making new ones". Roberts also briefly explained his reasoning for joining the majority. He explained:

"The [government's] ... theory, if accepted, would empower the Government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations—as the major ones are. First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy".

Justice Antonin Scalia also wrote a concurring opinion that addressed the dissent by Justice John Paul Stevens, specifically with regard to the original understanding of the First Amendment. Scalia wrote that Stevens's dissent was "in splendid isolation from the text of the First Amendment... It never shows why 'the freedom of speech' that was the right of Englishmen did not include the freedom to speak in association with other individuals, including association in the corporate form." He further considered the dissent's exploration of the Framers' views about the "role of corporations in society" to be misleading, and even if valid, irrelevant to the text of the Constitution. Scalia argued that the First Amendment was written in "terms of speech, not speakers" and that "Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker." This interpretation supported the majority's contention that the Constitution does not allow the courts to separate corporations into media and non-media categories.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately, concurring in the principal First Amendment holding but dissenting from the Court's decision to uphold the disclosure provisions of BCRA Sections 201 and 311. To protect the anonymity of contributors to organizations exercising free speech, Thomas would have struck down those reporting requirements, rather than allowing them to be challenged only on a case-by-case basis. Thomas's primary argument was that anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment and that making contributor lists public makes the contributors vulnerable to retaliation. Thomas also expressed concern that such retaliation could extend to retaliation by elected officials.

Dissenting opinion

An opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part by Justice John Paul Stevens was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. Stevens read part of his 90-page dissent from the bench. Stevens concurred in the Court's decision to sustain BCRA's disclosure provisions but dissented from the principal holding. He said the majority ruling "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution." He added: "A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold." Stevens also said the Court addressed a question not raised by the litigants when it found BCRA Section 203 to be facially unconstitutional, and that the majority "changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law".

Justice John Paul Stevens delivered the principal dissent.

Stevens argued that the Court had long recognized that to deny Congress the power to safeguard against "the improper use of money to influence the result [of an election] is to deny to the nation in a vital particular the power of self protection". After recognizing that in Buckley v. Valeo the court had struck down portions of a broad prohibition of independent expenditures from any sources, Stevens argued that nevertheless Buckley recognized the legitimacy of "prophylactic" measures for limiting campaign spending and found the prevention of corruption to be a reasonable goal for legislation. Consequently, Stevens argued that Buckley left the door open for carefully tailored future regulation. Stevens further argued that the majority opinion contradicted the reasoning of other campaign finance precedents including Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. FEC.

On the matter of undue corporate influence on elections and spending on behalf of chosen candidates, Stevens cited First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti and argued that the high court had "never suggested that such quid pro quo debts must take the form of outright vote buying or bribes". Again citing McConnell v. FEC, he argued that independent expenditures were sometimes a factor in gaining political access and concluded that large independent expenditures generate more influence than direct campaign contributions. Furthermore, Stevens argued that corporations could threaten politicians with negative advertising to gain unprecedented leverage, citing Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.

Hence, Stevens argued that the majority placed too little emphasis on the need to prevent the appearance of corruption in elections. Earlier cases, including Buckley, recognized the importance of public confidence in democracy. Stevens cited recent data indicating that 80% of the public viewed corporate independent expenditures as a method to gain unfair legislative influence. With corporations able to spend far more to influence elections than any ordinary citizen, Stevens was concerned that the majority opinion would cause the citizenry to "lose faith in our democracy".

Stevens wrote that corporations "are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established". He did not argue that corporations lack all First Amendment protection; rather, he contended that legislatures may account for differences between corporations and natural persons when regulating the use of corporate treasury funds in candidate elections. Corporate spending is the "furthest from the core of political expression" protected by the Constitution, he argued, citing Federal Election Commission v. Beaumont. Stevens also argued that restrictions on corporate election spending could protect dissenting shareholders from being compelled to finance political messages with which they disagreed, an interest that the majority found insufficient to justify the restriction.

Subsequent judicial developments

Citizens United became a central precedent in later campaign-finance litigation, although several major changes commonly associated with the decision resulted from subsequent cases rather than from Citizens United alone.

On March 26, 2010, the en banc D.C. Circuit decided SpeechNow.org v. FEC. Relying on Citizens United's conclusion that independent expenditures do not give rise to quid pro quo corruption or its appearance, the court held that federal contribution limits could not constitutionally be applied to a group that made only independent expenditures. The court left political-committee registration, reporting, and disclosure requirements in place. Together with subsequent FEC advisory opinions, the decision supplied the legal basis for independent-expenditure-only committees, commonly known as super PACs. Such committees may accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor organizations, and other political committees for independent spending, but may not make direct contributions to candidates and remain subject to coordination rules.

In Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett (2011), the Supreme Court struck down a feature of Arizona's public campaign-financing system that provided participating candidates with additional matching funds when privately financed opponents and independent groups exceeded specified spending thresholds. The decision did not invalidate public financing of campaigns generally.

In American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock (2012), the Court summarily reversed a Montana Supreme Court decision that had upheld a state law restricting corporate independent expenditures. The Court stated that there could be "no serious doubt" that the holding of Citizens United applied to Montana's law.

In McCutcheon v. FEC (2014), the Court invalidated federal aggregate limits on the total amount an individual could contribute to all federal candidates and political committees during a two-year election cycle. The decision retained the separate base limits on how much an individual could give to any particular candidate or committee. Although McCutcheon concerned contributions rather than independent expenditures, its plurality opinion relied in part on the Court's post-Citizens United approach to the anticorruption interest in campaign-finance law.

On June 30, 2026, the Court decided National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, holding that FECA's limits on political-party expenditures coordinated with federal candidates violated the First Amendment. The decision overruled FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (Colorado II) and cited Citizens United and other campaign-finance precedents in concluding that the coordinated-party expenditure limits were not sufficiently tailored to the government's anti-circumvention interest.

Studies of the electoral effects of the post-Citizens United legal environment have produced differing estimates. Several studies have found that the changes increased Republican electoral success in state legislative races, while other research has emphasized strategic responses by opposing spenders and more limited net effects on election outcomes.

Public reactions

Citizens United was highly controversial and remains a subject of widespread public discussion.

Support

Citizens United, upon its victory, said "Today's U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing Citizens United to air its documentary films and advertisements is a tremendous victory, not only for Citizens United but for every American who desires to participate in the political process." Many Republican politicians, conservative legal advocates, and advocates of fewer campaign-finance restrictions praised the Supreme Court's decision. According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, "For too long, some in this country have been deprived of full participation in the political process. With today's monumental decision, the Supreme Court took an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights of these groups by ruling that the Constitution protects their right to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day. By previously denying this right, the government was picking winners and losers. Our democracy depends upon free speech, not just for some but for all."

Republican campaign consultant Ed Rollins wrote that the decision adds transparency to the election process and will make it more competitive. Campaign finance attorney Cleta Mitchell, who had filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of two advocacy organizations supporting Citizens United, wrote that "The Supreme Court has correctly eliminated a constitutionally flawed system that allowed media corporations... to freely disseminate their opinions about candidates using corporate treasury funds, while denying that constitutional privilege to Susie's Flower Shop Inc. ... The real victims of the corporate expenditure ban have been nonprofit advocacy organizations across the political spectrum."

Hans A. von Spakovsky—of The Heritage Foundation and former member of the Federal Election Commission—said, "The Supreme Court has restored a part of the First Amendment that had been unfortunately stolen by Congress and a previously wrongly-decided ruling of the court." John Samples and Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute disagreed with the idea "that corporations had so much money that their spending would create vast inequalities in speech that would undermine democracy".

Law professor Bradley A. Smith—former chairman of the FEC and founder of the Institute for Free Speech—wrote that the opponents of political free speech are "incumbent politicians" who "are keen to maintain a chokehold on such speech". Empowering "small and midsize corporations—and every incorporated mom-and-pop falafel joint, local firefighters' union, and environmental group—to make its voice heard" frightens them. Campaign finance expert Jan Baran, a member of the Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform, wrote that "The history of campaign finance reform is the history of incumbent politicians seeking to muzzle speakers, any speakers, particularly those who might publicly criticize them and their legislation. It is a lot easier to legislate against unions, gun owners, 'fat cat' bankers, health insurance companies and any other industry or 'special interest' group when they can't talk back."

The editorial board of the San Antonio Express-News praised the ruling, arguing that it "makes no sense" for incorporated newspapers to be able to endorse candidates through the media exemption while other incorporated advocacy groups faced restrictions on comparable political communications. "While the influence of money on the political process is troubling and sometimes corrupting, abridging political speech is the wrong way to counterbalance that influence."

Opposition

President Barack Obama said the decision "gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington—while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates". Obama later said "this ruling strikes at our democracy itself" and "I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest". Just days after the ruling, he condemned it in his 2010 State of the Union Address, saying: "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections. Well, I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities." On television, the camera shifted to a shot of the Supreme Court Justices in the front row directly in front of Obama while he was saying this, and Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words "Not true". The Court did not decide in Citizens United whether the government could prohibit election spending by foreign nationals or foreign corporations, and the existing federal prohibition on foreign-national election spending was not invalidated by the decision.

Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, a lead sponsor of the BCRA, said: "This decision was a terrible mistake. Presented with a relatively narrow legal issue, the Supreme Court chose to roll back laws that have limited the role of corporate money in federal elections since Teddy Roosevelt was president." Representative Alan Grayson called it "the worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case" and said that the Court had opened the door to political bribery and corruption in future elections. Senator John McCain, a principal Senate sponsor of BCRA, said "there's going to be, over time, a backlash... when you see the amounts of union and corporate money that's going to go into political campaigns". McCain said he was disappointed by the decision and by the lifting of restrictions on corporate and union political spending, but was not surprised, saying, "It was clear that Justice Roberts, Alito and Scalia, by their very skeptical and even sarcastic comments, were very much opposed to BCRA."

Consumer activist Ralph Nader condemned the ruling, saying, "With this decision, corporations can now directly pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars." When discussing the ruling and related developments, former President Jimmy Carter called the United States "an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery" in an interview with Thom Hartmann. Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who had dissented in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and later jointly authored with Stevens portions of the Court's opinion in McConnell v. FEC (2003), criticized the decision only obliquely, but warned, "In invalidating some of the existing checks on campaign spending, the majority in Citizens United has signaled that the problem of campaign contributions in judicial elections might get considerably worse and quite soon."

Constitutional law scholar Laurence H. Tribe wrote, "talking about a business corporation as merely another way that individuals might choose to organize their association with one another to pursue their common expressive aims is worse than unrealistic; it obscures the very real injustice and distortion entailed in the phenomenon of some people using other people's money to support candidates they have made no decision to support, or to oppose candidates they have made no decision to oppose." Cass Sunstein of Harvard University listed Citizens United as the "worst Supreme Court decision since 1960", saying that it is "undermining our system of democracy itself."

The New York Times wrote in an editorial, "The Supreme Court has handed lobbyists a new weapon. A lobbyist can now tell any elected official: if you vote wrong, my company, labor union or interest group will spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising against your re-election." Jonathan Alter called it the "most serious threat to American democracy in a generation". The Christian Science Monitor wrote that the court had declared "outright that corporate expenditures cannot corrupt elected officials, that influence over lawmakers is not corruption, and that appearance of influence will not undermine public faith in our democracy".

Polls

An ABC–Washington Post poll conducted shortly after the ruling showed that 80% of those surveyed opposed (and 65% strongly opposed) the ruling, with the pollsters interpreting the results as: "corporations and unions can spend as much money as they want to help political candidates win elections". Additionally, 72% supported "an effort by Congress to reinstate limits on corporate and union spending on election campaigns". The poll showed large majority support from Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

A Gallup Poll conducted in 2009, after oral arguments but publicized after the Supreme Court ruling, produced more mixed results on broader campaign-finance principles. The poll found that 57% of those surveyed agreed that money given to political candidates was a form of free speech and 55% agreed that the same rules should apply to individuals, corporations, and unions. At the same time, 52% favored limits on campaign contributions and 76% thought the government should be able to place limits on corporate or union donations. Because some of these questions concerned contributions rather than the independent expenditures directly at issue in Citizens United, they did not precisely describe the Court's holding.

Separate polls commissioned by various conservative organizations, including Citizens United and the Institute for Free Speech, using different wording, found support for the decision. In particular, a Center for Competitive Politics poll found that 51% of respondents believed that Citizens United should have a right to air ads promoting Hillary: The Movie. The poll also found that only 22% had heard of the Supreme Court ruling. Polling conducted by Ipsos in 2017 found that 48% of Americans oppose the decision and 30% support it, with the remainder having no opinion. The poll also found that 57% of Americans favored "limits on the amount of money super PACs can raise and spend".

Legislative responses

Federal

In February 2010, shortly after the ruling, Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Chris Van Hollen outlined legislation intended to address some of the decision's effects. In June the DISCLOSE Act passed in the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate. It would have required additional disclosure by corporations of their campaign expenditures. The law, if passed, would also have prohibited political spending by American companies with twenty percent or more foreign ownership, and by most government contractors. Also in 2010, Senator Dick Durbin proposed that laws on corporate governance be amended to assure that shareholders vote on political expenditures.

Multiple constitutional amendments have been introduced to overturn Citizens United. Representative Donna Edwards and Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin circulated petitions to reverse the decision by constitutional amendment. Representative Leonard Boswell introduced legislation to amend the constitution. President Obama and Senator John Kerry also called for an amendment to overrule the decision. In 2011, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed the Saving American Democracy Amendment, which would reverse the ruling. In 2015, Sanders said, "the foundations of American democracy are being undermined" and called for sweeping campaign finance reform. He has repeated such calls in the years since.

States

The New York Times reported that 24 states with laws prohibiting or limiting independent expenditures by unions and corporations would have to change their campaign finance laws because of the ruling. In subsequent years, a number of states also changed their campaign-finance laws, including increases in contribution limits to candidates and parties in several states. By June 2015, Common Cause reported that 16 state legislatures had called for a constitutional amendment to overturn or otherwise address Citizens United. Most of these are non-binding resolutions, but three states—Vermont, California, and Illinois—called for an Article V Convention to draft and propose a federal constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. (Thirty-four states are needed to call an Article V convention.) California has since rescinded its call for a convention. In Minnesota, the Senate passed SF 17 by a 36–24 vote on May 2, 2013, but the measure did not pass the House of Representatives; it was returned to the General Register on May 15, 2014. By February 2016, Public Citizen reported that the District of Columbia and more than 680 cities and towns had also called for a constitutional amendment addressing the decision.

In 2026, Hawaii and Montana pursued a different strategy aimed at limiting corporate political spending by using state law governing the powers of corporations and other artificial entities. In Hawaii, Governor Josh Green signed SB 2471 as Act 11 on May 14, 2026. The law restricts covered artificial persons from participating in election and ballot-issue activity and is scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2027; supporters described it as a direct challenge to the legal framework associated with Citizens United, while critics questioned its constitutionality.

In Montana, the "Montana Plan", statutory ballot initiative I-194, qualified for the November 2026 general-election ballot. The proposal would limit the powers of corporations and other "artificial persons" doing business in Montana so that those powers exclude contributing anything of value to candidate elections, supporting or opposing political parties, or supporting or opposing state or local ballot measures. It contains exceptions for individuals, political committees, public corporations, and bona fide news, commentary, and editorial content.

Political impact

Some critics predicted that Citizens United would bring about a new era of increased corporate influence in politics. In the years following the ruling, however, some of the largest super-PAC expenditures came from a relatively small group of wealthy individuals, often motivated by ideology rather than direct corporate interests. The New York Times asked seven academics to discuss how corporate money might reshape politics after the Court's decision. Three wrote that the effects would be minimal or positive. Christopher Cotton argued that additional advertising could have diminishing returns and that voters did not necessarily equate greater spending with better candidates. Eugene Volokh wrote that the "most influential actors in most political campaigns" are media corporations that "overtly editorialize for and against candidates, and also influence elections by choosing what to cover and how to cover it". Holding that corporations like Exxon would fear alienating voters by supporting candidates, the decision really meant that voters would hear "more messages from more sources".

According to a 2020 report from OpenSecrets, between 2010 and 2020, the ten largest donors and their spouses spent a total of $1.2 billion on federal elections. In the 2018 elections, this group accounted for around 7% of all election-related giving, up from less than 1% a decade prior. Over the decade, election-related spending by non-party independent groups jumped to $4.5 billion, whereas from 1990 to 2010 the total spending under that category was just $750 million. Outside spending surpassed candidate spending in 126 races since the ruling compared to only 15 in the five election cycles prior. Groups that did not disclose their donors spent $963 million in the decade following the ruling, compared to $129 million in the decade prior. Non-party outside spending as a percentage of total election spending increased from 6% in 2008 to nearly 20% in 2018. During the 2016 election cycle, super PACs spent more than $1 billion, about 1.8 times the amount spent by the other categories of outside spenders combined. In 2018, over 95% of super PAC money came from the top 1% of donors.

Although Citizens United is often credited with creating super PACs, the decision itself concerned independent expenditures by corporations and unions. The D.C. Circuit's later decision in SpeechNow.org v. FEC applied Citizens United's anticorruption reasoning to contribution limits for independent-expenditure-only groups. Together, the decisions produced the legal framework under which super PACs may accept unlimited contributions while making only independent expenditures. Political scientist Samuel L. Popkin argued that the post-Citizens United system weakened political parties while strengthening candidate-centered and single-issue groups financed by major donors, which he contended could make parties less able to discipline candidates and maintain institutional norms.

Citizens United also removed the federal corporate-funding restriction on independent expenditures by incorporated 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations, including advocacy organizations such as Citizens United itself. Under federal tax law, a 501(c)(4) organization may engage in some political campaign activity so long as political campaign intervention is not its primary activity. A number of partisan organizations such as Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies and 21st Century Colorado have since registered as tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups and have engaged in substantial political spending. This has led to claims of large secret donations, and continuing debate over the extent to which politically active nonprofit organizations should be required to disclose their donors. The tax and campaign-finance disclosure rules governing such organizations are distinct from the disclaimer and disclosure provisions that the Supreme Court upheld in Citizens United.

Several empirical studies have found that the post-Citizens United changes increased the electoral success of Republican candidates in state legislative races. One study by the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and the London School of Economics found "that Citizens United increased the GOP's average seat share in the state legislature[s] by five percentage points. That is a large effect—large enough that, were it applied to the past twelve Congresses, partisan control of the House would have switched eight times." A 2016 study in The Journal of Law and Economics found "that Citizens United is associated with an increase in Republicans' election probabilities in state house races of approximately 4 percentage points overall and 10 or more percentage points in several states. We link these estimates to on-the-ground evidence of significant spending by corporations through channels enabled by Citizens United."

A 2026 study by economist Christian Cox in Econometrica examined congressional elections from 2010 through 2020 and modeled strategic responses to super-PAC spending. It found that spending by one side can prompt offsetting spending by the other, limiting the net equilibrium effect on vote shares and election outcomes even as deregulation increases fundraising and outside spending.

Election impact

Political contributions by billionaires and their immediate families increased substantially between 2004 and 2024; in 2024, Republicans received considerably more of this reported giving than Democrats.

Outside spending in federal elections rose substantially in the years after Citizens United and SpeechNow. During the 2008 election cycle, the last election before the ruling, outside spending accounted for $574 million of all election spending. In 2012 it increased to $1.3 billion. By 2020, outside spending was $3.3 billion and $4.5 billion in 2024. Most of the outside spending in the 2024 cycle was made by super PACs.

The campaign-finance system that developed after Citizens United and SpeechNow also coincided with greater concentration of election-related giving among very wealthy donors. Citizens United itself did not loosen limits on direct contributions to candidates; SpeechNow later invalidated contribution limits as applied to independent-expenditure-only groups. In the 2008 election, "the top 100 individual donors contributed an aggregate $80.9 million, accounting for 1.5% of the $5.3 billion spent on federal elections." This percentage continued to rise after the 2010 election, the first after the ruling, reaching a peak of 15.8% in 2020. During the 2024 election, it decreased to 14.8%. The largest donor in the 2024 election cycle was Elon Musk, contributing $277 million.

See also

• Campaign finance in the United States
• Campaign finance reform in the United States
• SpeechNow.org v. FEC
• American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock
• 2009 term opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States
• End Citizens United
• Stamp Stampede
• Issue advocacy ads
• First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti
• Shadow campaigns in the United States

Further reading

• Alexander M. "Citizens United and equality forgotten" 35 New York University Review of Law & Social Change (2011) 499.
• Dawood, Yasmin. "Campaign Finance and American Democracy." Annual Review of Political Science (2015) Abstract & download
• Epstein, Richard A. "Citizens United v. FEC: the constitutional right that big corporations should have but do not want" Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. 34 (2): 639+.
• Gerken H. "The real problem with Citizens United: Campaign finance, dark money, and shadow parties" 97 Marquette Law Review (2014) 903.
• Hansen, Wendy L., Michael S. Rocca, and Brittany Leigh Ortiz. "The effects of Citizens United on corporate spending in the 2012 presidential election." Journal of Politics 77.2 (2015): 535–545. in JSTOR
• Kang, M. "The end of campaign finance law" 98 Virginia Law Review (2012).
• Post, Robert, ed. Citizens Divided: Campaign Finance Reform and the Constitution (Harvard University Press, 2014).

External links

• Text of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) is available from: Cornell CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Internet Archive (docket files) Justia
• Federal Election Commission case page
• Court documents
• Oral Argument Transcript, PDF links to one of the two oral arguments.
• Text of Supreme Court decision, PDF