End Citizens United president breaks down how federal campaign finance case could affect midterms
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What is the Supreme Court’s NRSC v FEC decision and why does it matter?
When I think about elections, I think about political personalities, decisive wedge issues, and money. The U.S. Supreme Court issued this summer a pivotal campaign finance decision in the National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission case, and it shifted more spending power to establishment political parties. ... ... ... ... ... ... We're going to talk about these cases, what the latest Supreme Court decision means for ordinary people, and more with my guest today, Tiffany Moeller. She has been the president of End Citizens United since 2016. It's a political action committee that aims to root out undisclosed money from politics and overturn the 2010 ruling. She was also the first openly gay elected official in Kansas, sitting on the Topeka City Council from 2004 to 2005.
Tiffany, thank you for joining the Kansas Reflector podcast once again.
It's great to be here again. So always happy to do anything I can in Kansas.
We appreciate it. So to start off, can you break down the recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion, the National Republican Senatorial Committee versus the Federal Election Commission? What does it mean? To whom does it apply? And what do you foresee its effects being? We'll start with the meaning part first. I got packed a lot in there. Go ahead.
That's OK. That's OK. You know, I mean, I think that this is going to be a really consequential case. And yet I feel like it's flown a bit under the radar. So for folks who weren't tracking before the Supreme Court left for their summer recess at the end of their term, they handed down what's essentially being called Citizens United 2.0 in the NRSC versus FEC decision. And You know what this did is it actually took some of our remaining campaign finance guardrails and it just obliterated that. Right. And put simply, there used to be limits on how much party committees could spend. in direct coordination with candidates. It was called the 441 money. And those limits really existed to help prevent corruption and to make sure that the big money donors weren't just able to funnel all of their money through the party committee and into a campaign.
But those limits are gone. The Supreme Court just completely did away with those limits. And so basically what we now have is that the party committees themselves can become these unlimited spending machines for candidates. And this means that and what it's going to mean for voters is voters are going to see more attack ads. more negative campaigning, more billionaire money in our elections, and politicians and candidates that are even more disconnected and unresponsive to the actual people and more in the pockets of the big money and the party committee. And here's the other thing we know. This ruling comes less than 200 days from the midterm elections. Right. We're now 80 some odd days out. But this was really kind of the perfect moment for the biggest donors and wealthy donors to start pouring money into party committees.
We're getting out of primary season into the general election season. We know that this is kind of when the most competitive races really take off, when we see the most spending. And what we're seeing across the country is already an impact on whether or not candidates are out doing town halls, whether they are answering questions from voters themselves. And so I'll just give one example. Georgia Senate race, right? Like, let's just take the Georgia Senate race. Senator Ossoff, who won in one of the closest elections in 2020, actually had to win in the runoff on January 5th of 2021. And he's built one of the strongest grassroots fundraising operations in the country and has used that to raise about $81 million.
And he has He had $40 million or thereabouts of cash on hand. That's a huge war chest, and he's been doing it through outreach to lots and lots of people. Mike Collins, on the other hand, the Republican candidate in this race, has raised only $7 million and only has about $2 million cash on hand. But with this ruling by the Supreme Court, the NRSC, which has about a $50 million war chest, can now go spend unlimited money to prop up Mike Collins and to close that gap with Senator Ossoff, essentially wiping out all of the really hard work and hard earned effort that he's done with the voters of Georgia.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the Supreme Court’s NRSC v FEC decision and why does it matter?
0:01–6:47
2
How does the ruling eliminate party‑committee spending limits and create unlimited‑spending parties?
6:47–12:50
3
What immediate effects will the decision have on the 2024 midterm elections?
12:50–19:04
4
Are any campaign‑finance guardrails left after the Court’s ruling?
19:04–24:58
5
Why are voters increasingly angry about big‑money influence in everyday issues like health care and housing?
24:58–29:40
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