In January 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of the most consequential and controversial rulings in modern political history: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The 5–4 decision dramatically altered the legal landscape of campaign finance, opening the door for unlimited spending by corporations, unions, and certain nonprofit organizations, potentially giving them disproportionate influence in election campaigning.
Hailed by some as a victory for free expression and condemned by others as unleashing a torrent of special interest cash into politics, Citizens United has continued to define the shape of campaign financing for the past 15 years.
The Origins of the Case
The lawsuit began with a film. In 2008, Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit organization led by David Bossie, produced “Hillary: The Movie,” a 90-minute documentary highly critical of then-Senator Hillary Clinton, who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Citizens United wanted to air the film on cable television through video-on-demand services within 30 days of the Democratic primary elections and planned to run promotional advertisements.
However, federal campaign finance law under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (also known as McCain-Feingold) prohibited corporations from using general treasury funds for “electioneering communications” within specific timeframes before elections.
Fearing civil and criminal penalties, Citizens United sought a court declaration that their film and promotional materials were exempt from these restrictions.
The organization argued that because the documentary didn’t explicitly tell viewers how to vote, it shouldn’t be classified as campaign advocacy subject to corporate spending limits. A federal district court disagreed, ruling unanimously that the film could only be interpreted as telling viewers that Clinton was “unfit for office” and encouraging them to vote against her.
The Supreme Court’s Landmark Ruling
Citizens United appealed, and the Supreme Court ultimately agreed to hear the case, raising questions not just about this particular film, but about the broader constitutionality of limiting corporate and union election expenditures.
In their decision, the justices went far beyond the narrow question in the original case. In a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Scalia, and Alito, the Court ruled that restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations and unions violated the First Amendment’s free speech protections.
The majority opinion overturned two significant precedents: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and portions of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003). Justice Kennedy wrote that political speech is “indispensable to decision making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation.”
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing in dissent, warned that the decision represented “a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government.”
The ruling did not lift limits on direct contributions to candidates; those caps remain in place. But it cleared the way for unlimited spending on independent political advocacy, so long as it is not coordinated with a candidate’s campaign.
The majority decision made two key assumptions: that independent political spending wouldn’t lead to corruption because it would be transparent, and that it would remain truly separate from candidate campaigns. Both assumptions have proven incorrect in practice.
Transforming the Political Landscape
The decision’s impact has been dramatic and far-reaching. Outside spending in federal elections skyrocketed from $730 million at the time of the ruling to $4.5 billion in 2024. The ruling enabled the creation of “super PACs”—political action committees that can raise and spend unlimited amounts as long as they maintain nominal (sometimes fictional) independence from campaigns.
Each election cycle since 2010 has seen a new record in campaign spending, much of it “outside money”—funds raised and spent by organizations not directly affiliated with candidates or parties. The influence of wealthy donors has only grown, with some estimates suggesting that the vast majority of outside election funding comes from a small handful of deep-pocketed interests.
Perhaps more concerning to democracy advocates is the rise of “dark money” — political spending where the funding source remains secret. Dark money expenditures increased from less than $5 million in 2006 to over $1 billion in the 2024 presidential election alone.
The 2024 election exemplified Citizens United‘s influence. Billionaire-backed super PACs helped close substantial fundraising gaps, with groups like those funded by Elon Musk taking on core campaign functions including voter outreach operations, while supposedly remaining independent. This concentration of political influence among ultra-wealthy donors represents a fusion of private wealth and political power unseen since the late 19th century.
Current Political Implications
Today, Citizens United remains deeply unpopular with the American public. A Washington Post – ABC News poll found that 80% of Americans opposed the Citizens United ruling, Including 85% of Democrats, 76% of Republicans, and 81% of independents.
The ruling has created what some campaign finance experts call a “corruption bomb” effect, where wealthy individuals can effectively buy political influence through seemingly independent expenditures. Recent legislative efforts, including the proposed Abolish Super PACs Act introduced in Congress, aim to restore some limits on political spending, though prospects for passage remain unlikely.
The Citizens United decision continues to shape American politics in 2025. Campaigns increasingly rely on outside groups to fund negative advertising, which can deepen political polarization. With no upper limit on independent expenditures, candidates may feel beholden to the interests of big-money backers who can tip the scales in tight races.
Supporters of the ruling argue that it promotes free speech, enabling more voices to be heard in the political arena. They contend that limiting corporate or union spending would amount to government censorship. Opponents counter that equating money with speech effectively drowns out the voices of ordinary voters who cannot match the spending power of corporations or billionaires.
Some reform advocates are pursuing constitutional amendments to overturn Citizens United, though such efforts face steep political and procedural hurdles. Others push for enhanced disclosure laws to ensure voters know who is funding political messages.
As the 2026 midterm elections approach, Citizens United‘s legacy continues to define the relationship between money and political power. It raises fundamental questions about whether democratic governance can function effectively when political speech is increasingly dominated by the ultra-wealthy. Should the First Amendment protect unlimited political spending by corporations and unions, or does such spending distort democracy by giving disproportionate influence to the wealthiest? The Court’s ruling in Citizens United has transformed the way American elections are fought and the consequences of that decision are still unfolding.
Is the Roberts Court Biased? The Pattern Speaks for Itself
By John Turley
On May 19, 2026
In Commentary, Politics
Chief Justice John Roberts keeps telling Americans the Supreme Court is not political. He recently complained that people “view us as purely political actors,” and insisted that’s just not how the Court works. That might have been plausible twenty years ago. After the decisions of the past decade, it sounds less like reassurance and more like spin.
The Roberts Court started out conventionally conservative. Then came the turning points: Anthony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in 2020. Donald Trump replaced them with Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, locking in a 6–3 conservative supermajority. Since then, on the biggest fights of our time—voting, money in politics, reproductive freedom, presidential power—the Court’s answers have marched almost uniformly to the right.
One analysis of the Court’s work through 2018 found more than seventy cases where the conservative bloc formed a majority in areas like voting rights, campaign finance, corporate accountability, and civil rights where the conservative justices either bent precedent or quietly shelved their own stated doctrines to get where they wanted to go. That is not happenstance. That is a method.
Look at the decisions that define this era.
In Citizens United, the Court announced that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited money in elections, destroying what remained of campaign finance law and supercharging the power of wealthy donors and corporate interests. In Shelby County, it gutted a core provision of the Voting Rights Act, inviting a wave of state-level restrictions that predictably hit minority voters hardest. In Rucho, Roberts openly acknowledged that partisan gerrymandering is “incompatible with democratic principles”—and then declared the federal courts powerless to stop it. The Court saw a threat to democracy and chose to shrug.
Dobbs went further. For nearly fifty years, Roe v. Wade recognized a constitutional right to abortion. In 2022, that right vanished in a single 6–3 decision that tracked partisan lines. The majority did not just reject Roe; it rewrote the understanding of liberty in a way that puts other long‑standing rights on shakier ground.
Then there is Trump v. United States, which discovered sweeping criminal immunity for presidents found nowhere in the Constitution’s text or structure. Contrast that with New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, where the same Court insisted modern gun laws must mirror 18th‑ and 19th‑century regulations. History is mandatory when it narrows gun regulation. History is optional when it might constrain a president. The “neutral” principles somehow keep landing on the same ideological side.
The real indictment of the Roberts Court is not that the justices are conservative; conservative legal thought has serious intellectual roots. It is that the Court’s philosophy behaves like a trapdoor: originalism when it helps, textualism when that works better, “judicial restraint” when restraint freezes progressive policies, and muscular judicial power when restraint would get in the way. The tools keep changing. The destination does not.
The shadow docket has only deepened the concern. Using unsigned, unexplained emergency orders, the Court has green‑lit sweeping policy changes—on immigration, civil rights, and executive power—while lower courts were still sorting out legality. Normally, dramatic changes to national policy come with full briefing, oral argument, and written opinions. Under Roberts, some of the most consequential decisions arrive in the dead of night, with no reasoning the public can read and no guidance lower courts can follow.
To be honest, the story is not all one-way traffic. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion which held that federal employment law protects LGBTQ workers. Roberts has occasionally voted to preserve precedent he personally disliked. There are a handful of high‑profile cases where the conservative justices have broken ranks or rejected expansive claims of presidential power, but those cases are rare.
In the high‑stakes political questions of the last decade the line is brutally clear: when democracy is at stake, money wins; when voting rights are at stake, restrictions win; when women’s bodily autonomy is at stake, state power wins; when presidential accountability is at stake, the president wins. That is not a random walk through neutral legal doctrine. It is a pattern.
Roberts is right about one thing: it is simplistic to call justices “politicians in robes.” Asking whether the Roberts Court is “biased” is not the point. Regardless of label, we have a Supreme Court whose decisions on the most contested issues overwhelmingly favor one political side. The law requires consistency and when the Court keeps changing its rules but not its results, the public is not fooled.
The Chief Justice can insist that is just how the law shakes out. The rest of us are entitled to look at the record and draw our own conclusions.