1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

For $1 billion in dark money, you can buy an American election. Someone already did. And I need my representative to help take it back. I am a constituent, voter, and taxpayer in your district writing to demand that you take immediate action to end the Citizens United era, establish publicly funded elections, and permanently prohibit corporate cash, Super PAC money, and all private inducements from American campaigns. The First Amendment you swore to uphold was written to protect the free speech of citizens — not the unlimited checkbooks of corporations. Yet the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling treated corporate spending as constitutionally protected speech, opening the floodgates to what has become a full auction of our democracy. Even Justice John Paul Stevens — a Republican appointee — warned in his dissent that the ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions.” He was right. Consider what that decision has wrought: Dark money exploded from less than $5 million in 2006 to more than $1 billion in the 2024 presidential election alone — most of it untraceable. In the 2022 midterms, just 21 of the wealthiest donor families contributed $783 million, drowning out millions of ordinary voters. Elon Musk poured $270 million into electing Donald Trump — and that investment paid off handsomely. His companies SpaceX, Tesla, and Starlink received billions in federal contracts and regulatory rollbacks worth hundreds of billions more. That is not free speech. That is a documented return on a political investment. That is corruption with a receipts. And it is not just domestic billionaires we should fear. Citizens United created a loophole allowing foreign-influenced corporations to spend in U.S. elections through their American subsidiaries. This is not merely a fairness issue — it is a national security crisis. Foreign governments can now purchase influence over American policy through a Supreme Court ruling. This is not a partisan issue. A YouGov poll found that 63% of Americans — including a majority of Republicans — oppose Citizens United. We have seen this corrupting influence before: it mirrors the Gilded Age capture of government by railroad barons and industrialists that required an entire Progressive Era to dismantle. We are at that same inflection point today. America is now an outlier among democracies. Canada, the UK, France, and Germany all impose strict campaign finance limits. Forty-six countries outright ban corporate donations to political parties. The United States — which presents itself as the world’s leading democracy — allows unlimited, often anonymous corporate and billionaire spending in its elections. That is an embarrassment on the world stage and a betrayal of our founding principles. The solution is already written. Colleagues of yours have already done the work. I demand you join them: 1. Co-sponsor the Citizens Over Corporations Amendment, introduced by Senator Adam Schiff, Rep. Summer Lee, Rep. Joe Neguse, and Rep. Jim McGovern on Constitution Day 2025 — a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United and prohibit corporations from spending money to influence elections. 2. Co-sponsor the Democracy for All Amendment, introduced by Senator Jeanne Shaheen, which would enshrine in the Constitution the right of the American people to regulate campaign fundraising and spending. 3. Co-sponsor the DISCLOSE Act to require full public disclosure of every dollar spent on federal elections — no more dark money, no more anonymous billionaire influence. 4. Support the Freedom to Vote Act to establish a small-dollar, citizen-funded public election financing system that gives every American an equal voice. 5. Publicly commit to accepting zero corporate PAC money and zero Super PAC support for your own campaigns, effective immediately. 6. Demand a full public accounting — via FOIA if necessary — of all dark money spent to influence federal elections since Citizens United was decided in 2010. Elections should be publicly funded, strictly limited, and completely free of corporate cash, Super PAC dollars, and private inducements of any kind. Every candidate should compete on the strength of their ideas and the breadth of their community support — not the depth of their donor’s pockets. Note also the bipartisan momentum building in the states: 23 states have already passed resolutions calling on Congress to overturn Citizens United, including red states like West Virginia and Utah. Missouri — a deeply red state — is poised to become the 24th. The American people, across party lines, are demanding this. The question is whether you will lead or follow. I am sharing this letter with my neighbors, my community groups, and local media. Your response — or your silence — will be noted publicly and will weigh on every vote I and my neighbors cast. I would appreciate a written response stating your position on Citizens United and the specific steps you are prepared to take. And I ask you directly: How much corporate and PAC money have you personally accepted? Then tell me you still represent me. You swore an oath to the Constitution and to the people of this district — not to the corporations and billionaires who fund campaigns. Now is the time to prove you meant it.