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The Forces Shaping Tomorrow's America
Part 2: The Price of Buying a Congressman
Michael Sullivan
September 04, 2025
Hi,
The difference between salsa and marinara sauce, and even tomato soup for that matter, is just a state of mind (humor me).
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Seattle Soundbites
This one is funny: $500,000 worth of counterfeit Labubu dolls were seized at SeaTac by Customs and Border Patrol agents.
Seattle’s affordable-housing market is struggling to fill vacancies according to the Seattle Times.
Momentum
Below is the second of a 4-part column I am publishing on the various factions in power that are shaping the course of our country. It is my own attempt to explain their history, the architecture they’ve built, and how they compete and collaborate on building an America that will be far different tomorrow than ever before in our lifetime.
Check out previous parts here:
The Price of Buying a Congressman
Fifteen years ago, a conservative nonprofit called Citizens United desire to air an anti-Hillary Clinton documentary would reshape American democracy in ways few could have imagined.
Hillary: The Movie (2008)
Citizens United v. FEC began as a narrow dispute over whether the organization could broadcast "Hillary: The Movie" during the 2008 primary season, without running afoul of campaign finance restrictions. But when the Supreme Court issued their ruling in January 2010, it didn't just allow the film to air—the Court took the opportunity to rewrite the rules of political spending.
The Supreme Court established two key principles in their 5-4 ruling.
First, corporations should be treated like individual people and afforded certain rights.
Second, the act of giving money in support of something qualified as a form of "speech."
Combine these two ideas together, and you now have a system where restrictions on corporate political spending constituted unconstitutional limits on free speech. This ruling effectively dismantled decades of campaign finance restrictions, opening floodgates that have transformed our state and national politics.
While direct corporate contributions to candidates remain illegal, Citizens United created powerful new vehicles for political spending. Political Action Committees (PACs or Super PACs), as they are called, could now raise and spend unlimited amounts from corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals, provided they don't coordinate directly with campaigns—a restriction that's rarely enforced in practice. Meanwhile, 501(c)(4) nonprofit "social welfare" organizations can accept unlimited donations while keeping their donors' identities secret.
What this means is a straightforward pipeline exists for political donations to be anonymously shepherded through these nonprofits, into Super PACs, and into the hands of political candidates.
Thus the "dark money" moniker came into being, and elections have never been the same since.