Adopt-a-Dem, dark money, and the choice to invest in Democracy…
La$t Chance
In my lifetime, I have never felt that my personal political engagement was so important. Some of us have played at politics as if it were a game. We all wanted to win, and as ‘ hometown activists’, we all knew the drill. Elections were won with sweat equity and a few dollars here and there earned from basket-of-cheer raffles and spaghetti dinner proceeds. Work the phones, knock on doors, attend the rallies, and wear your colors! House signs were like lawn furniture in our neighborhoods, replaced by blow-up Santas and blinking reindeer for the Christmas season. During election season, politics was played like bloodsport. After the results were in, civility returned, and our politics, like holiday ornaments, were packed away until the next cycle. No more.
The 2026 midterms may represent the last best chance to save our democracy for a generation. Undoing the damage done by this administration may take that long. Losing in 2026 is no longer an option. If we feel imperiled now, the consequences of ceding power to the out-of-control cabal of autocrats and wannabees in the hopes of retaking the presidency in ’28 would be far too risky.
It’s the money, stupid!
Some of us are unaware of the importance of our vote — a time when voting was treated as discretionary. Not any more- not now. The GOP may hold all three branches of power, but real power resides in our individual right to vote. Whether America realizes it or not, our right to vote is on the ballot. The vote is the final checkpoint on the road to fascism. The most recent breaching of that barrier was the Citizens United sellout by the U.S. Supreme Court. The 2010 decision equated speech with political influence purchased with the funds provided by special interests. The vote was 5–4- not a landmark decision by any count- but the results have led to the devaluation of the vote and earned this prescient dissent from Justice John Paul Stevens:
“[w]hen citizens turn on their televisions and radios before an election and hear only corporate electioneering, they may lose faith in their capacity, as citizens, to influence public policy…
…At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.
I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.”
- Justice Stevens dissent
Citizens United, the Court case that weaponized campaign financing, defined financial contributions as protected First Amendment speech. The 2010 decision significantly altered the political landscape by favoring wealthy interests in influencing election outcomes. The decision has proved to be a difference-maker for the GOP’s conservative base because the 5 justices who concurred in the decision made assumptions that conveniently obscured reality:
The justices who decided Citizens United held that independent spending could not pose a substantial risk of corruption on the erroneous assumption that the money wouldn’t be under the control of any single candidate or party. They also assumed that existing transparency rules would require all the new spending they were permitting to be fully transparent, allowing voters to appropriately evaluate the messages targeting them.
Both assumptions have proven to be incorrect. While super PACs and other outside spenders are supposed to be separate from candidates and parties, they usually work in tandem with them — to the point where affiliated super PACs that can raise unlimited money are now integral to most major campaigns. Legal loopholes also mean that many of these groups can keep their sources of funding secret.
- Brennan Center for Justice, “Citizens UnitedE xplained,” by Daniel I. Weiner
Citizens United was decided, in part, by misapplying the rationale of the post-Watergate Buckley v. Valeo decision (1976). Ironically, Valeo called for Federal limits on individual campaign contributions, but, as a corollary to the finding, suggested that corporate contributions were not included under their ruling:
“The First Amendment requires the invalidation of the Act’s independent expenditure ceiling, its limitation on a candidate’s expenditures from his own personal funds, and its ceilings on over-all campaign expenditures, since those provisions place substantial and direct restrictions on the ability of candidates, citizens, and associations to engage in protected political expression, restrictions that the First Amendment cannot tolerate. “
The Court’sunsigned decision in Citizens United suggests that the majority justified their finding upon the unintended consequence of the Burger Court’s intent to limit Federal intrusion in campaign financing matters. Justice Scalia’s smug concurrence invited dark money interests into the elective process without the need for the wolf to wear his sheep costume to court:
The dissent says that when the Framers “constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind.” … That is no doubt true. All the provisions of the Bill of Rights set forth the rights of individual men and women-not, for example, of trees or polar bears. But the individual person’s right to speak includes the right to speak in association with other individual persons. Surely the dissent does not believe that speech by the Republican Party or the Democratic Party can be censored because it is not the speech of “an individual American.”
- Justice Antonin Scalia concurring opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
The race for control of the House is on, and Republicans will open the financing floodgates to maintain their majority. The gerrymandering efforts among red states are a strategic first step in the process. Efforts by the current administration to suppress voting are underway under the broad pretense of immigration reform and fear-mongering in blue cities across the country. The efforts have received healthy funding and encouragement from wealthy donors and their media outlets- voices with hidden identities funded through unregulated super PACs. To counteract the flood of dollars in support of GOP interests, Democrats must act strategically and raise our voices to meet the threat. A major consideration in the process will be to adequately fund candidates, not as an option but as an imperative.
Blue Angel
Now is not a time to wring our hands and look for leaders to rescue us. Barack Obama’s restatement of the poet June Jordan’s quote is more relevant now than when she included it in “Poem for South African Women.” She wrote ‘we are the ones we have been waiting for’ and today her words echo in answer to the question, ‘who will lead us out of this mess we are in?” Being outvoted has now become a major consequence of being outspent. CU has as its legacy the need to combat corporate greed and power.
In my case, living in a red state where House candidates are rather secure, I intend to ‘adopt’ a Democratic candidate in a competitive race in another state, and help fund their election campaigns. I will be supporting Paige Cognetti’s campaign to oust Rep. Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania. Cognetti has twice won reelection as Mayor of Scranton, PA. In early polling, Cognetti has a slight lead in a district that was formerly represented by a Democrat, Matt Cartwright, who lost a tight race in the Trump victory in 2020. She is a tireless campaigner skilled in debate and retail campaigning.
Act Blue is sponsoring an Adopt a Democrat small donor campaign that will allocate funds to races deemed viable. For those who would prefer a specific ‘political adoption’ for the midterms, here is a link to races that are competitive. An individual is limited to separate $3500 contributions in primary and general elections.
Originally published at https://www.dailykos.com on September 21, 2025.
