Shine A Light on Dark Money
You Don't Know Who's Buying Your Government
In 2010, the Supreme Court decided Citizens United v. FEC and opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate and nonprofit spending on elections. The decision was controversial, but it came with a promise: all of this new spending would be transparent. Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, declared that "disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way" and that with the internet, "prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable." [1]
That promise was never kept.
In 2006, dark money spending in federal elections (spending by groups that don't disclose their donors) totaled less than $5 million. By the 2012 cycle, it had exploded to more than $300 million. By 2020, it crossed $1 billion. In the 2024 cycle, it hit $1.9 billion - nearly doubling the previous record. [2] Since Citizens United, dark money groups have poured at least $4.3 billion into federal elections. [2]
Total outside spending on 2024 federal elections reached a record $4.5 billion. More than half of that money came from groups that do not fully disclose where their funding comes from. [3] Shell companies and nonprofits that hide their donors steered over $1 billion in contributions to super PACs in the 2024 cycle alone - more than the prior two cycles combined. [3]
Nobody voted for this. And nobody can tell you who paid for it.
The MAD Act would end anonymous political spending in federal elections and extend disclosure requirements to the dark money that has been used to reshape the federal judiciary.
What Dark Money Actually Is
The term gets thrown around loosely, so let's be precise.
Dark money is political spending by organizations that are not legally required to disclose their donors. The most common vehicles are 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organizations, which can spend on elections as long as political activity isn't their "primary" purpose, and shell companies (entities created with no real business operations, used to funnel money to super PACs without revealing where it came from).
Super PACs are technically required to disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission. But if a super PAC's largest contributor is a 501(c)(4) that doesn't disclose its own funders, or a shell LLC that was created last month and will dissolve next month, the disclosure is meaningless. You can see that "Americans for a Better Tomorrow" gave $20 million. You cannot see who gave the money to Americans for a Better Tomorrow. The trail goes dark.
And the methods are getting more sophisticated. After Citizens United, dark money groups at least bought their own ads; spending that showed up in FEC filings. Increasingly, these groups have shifted to making large contributions to super PACs and to purchasing advertisements outside the 30- and 60-day windows that trigger mandatory disclosure, rendering a growing share of political spending invisible to voters and regulators. [2]
What the Bill Would Do About Elections
The MAD Act requires any "covered organization" (corporations, LLCs, 501(c)(4)s, 501(c)(5)s, 501(c)(6)s, labor organizations, and political organizations) that makes more than $10,000 in campaign-related disbursements in an election cycle to file a disclosure statement within 24 hours of hitting that threshold. The statement, made under penalty of perjury, must include the name of every person who gave the organization $10,000 or more during the reporting period.
That's the core mechanism: if you spend money to influence a federal election, the public gets to know who funded you.
The bill explicitly excludes 501(c)(3) charitable organizations, which are already prohibited from intervening in political campaigns and whose donor restrictions are independently enforceable under the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act. The bill's findings explain why 501(c)(4)s and similar organizations can't claim the same protection: any restriction a donor places on a payment to these groups is a private contractual arrangement with no government oversight. Because money is fungible — every unrestricted dollar frees up an equivalent dollar for political spending; disclosure limited to donors who specifically earmark funds for politics would be unenforceable and trivially easy to circumvent.
The bill also protects donors who face genuine threats. If a covered organization can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that disclosing a specific donor's identity would subject that person to serious threats, harassment, or reprisals, the FEC can grant an exemption: limited to that specific person, valid for two years, and not renewable on the basis of generalized claims about hostility toward the organization's mission.
The Judiciary Problem
Under current law, there are zero disclosure requirements for spending to influence the nomination and confirmation of federal judges. None. You can spend $50 million on an advertising campaign supporting or opposing a Supreme Court nominee, and nobody (not the Senate, not the public, not the judge) has any legal right to know who paid for it.
A single network of dark money organizations has channeled more than $250 million into efforts to reshape the federal judiciary. [4] [5] One organization within that network (the Concord Fund, formerly known as the Judicial Crisis Network) raised more than $48 million from anonymous donors in a single fiscal year, nearly all of it from just two contributors. [6] This spending funded advertising campaigns for and against Supreme Court nominees, vetting and selecting potential nominees, and litigation designed to bring strategic cases before judges whose confirmation those same networks had supported.
The Supreme Court itself recognized the problem this creates. In Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. (2009), the Court held that due process requires recusal when someone with a personal stake in a case had "a significant and disproportionate influence" in placing the judge on that case. [7] But that principle is unenforceable if nobody knows who spent the money. A litigant can't raise a conflict of interest they can't see. A judge can't recuse from a case connected to a funder they don't know about.
The MAD Act treats spending on "Federal judicial nomination communications" (advertising that promotes, supports, attacks, or opposes a specific nominee) as a campaign-related disbursement subject to the same disclosure rules. The disclosure window runs from the date the President announces or submits a nomination through 120 days after the Senate confirms, rejects, or the nomination is withdrawn.
This means that the public would finally know who is spending money to put specific judges on the bench and judges themselves would know whether parties appearing before them had funded their confirmation.
The Foreign Money Problem
Federal law already prohibits foreign nationals from contributing to U.S. elections. But the prohibition is only as strong as the government's ability to trace where money comes from, and right now, the dark money pipeline makes that nearly impossible.
The bill cites a real case: in 2021, the FEC found that an experienced political consultant had knowingly offered to route a $2 million contribution from a foreign national through his company and two 501(c)(4) organizations to conceal its origin. [8] The scheme was only uncovered because a journalist at The Telegraph UK captured it on video. Without that accident of journalism, the money would have entered the system undetected.
The MAD Act closes these channels in several ways. It expands the definition of prohibited foreign national spending to cover a broader range of political disbursements, including digital ads, paid online promotions, and payments to compensate people for internet activity promoting or opposing candidates. It prohibits foreign nationals from spending on ballot initiatives and referenda. It makes it a federal crime (up to five years in prison) to establish or use a corporation, LLC, or other entity to conceal election-related activity by a foreign national. And it directs FinCEN, the Treasury Department's financial crimes unit, to share information with the FEC to help enforce the rules.
The bill also requires the Comptroller General to study the incidence of illicit foreign money in federal elections every four years, with specific attention to whether such money was used to target particular communities.
Stand By Every Ad
The bill's final chapter addresses a simpler problem: when you see a political ad, you should know who paid for it and who funded the group that paid for it.
Under current law, political ads carry disclaimers ("Paid for by Americans for Prosperity") but those disclaimers don't tell you who funded Americans for Prosperity. The MAD Act requires that video ads include a "Top Five Funders" list: the names of the five largest donors to the organization paying for the ad, along with the amounts they gave. Audio ads must include the top two funders. The head of the organization must personally deliver an "I approve this message" statement, just as candidates already do.
If an ad is too short to include the full list, it must include a website address where the full disclosure is available. If it's a digital ad that supports hyperlinks, it must link directly to that page.
The point is straightforward: if you're going to spend money telling voters what to think, voters get to know who you are.
Why This Matters Now
The scale of undisclosed spending has reached the point where the existing disclosure system is functionally broken. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held (in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), in Citizens United itself) that disclosure requirements are constitutional, that they serve the government's interest in an informed electorate, and that they are the "least restrictive means" of addressing the problems of corruption and electoral ignorance. [1] [9] No subsequent decision has disturbed those holdings.
What the Court did not anticipate is that its assumption of transparency would go unenforced for 15 years. Citizens United rested on the premise that voters would know who was spending money to influence their choices. They don't. The MAD Act would make good on the promise the Court assumed had already been kept.
And it would address something the Court hasn't yet grappled with: the compounding effect of anonymous money flowing into both elections and judicial nominations simultaneously. When the same undisclosed networks that determine who holds elected office also determine who sits on the federal bench (and what cases reach those judges) the result is a concentration of unaccountable power across multiple branches of government that no voter approved and no one can trace.
The MAD Act doesn't limit how much anyone can spend. It doesn't restrict speech. It says one thing: if you're going to spend money to influence who governs this country, the country gets to know your name.
Acknowledgment
The political spending disclosure provisions of the MAD Act are built substantially on the foundation laid by the DISCLOSE Act — legislation first authored by Senator Chris Van Hollen in the House of Representatives in 2010, introduced in the Senate by Leader Chuck Schumer that same year, and reintroduced in every Congress since under the leadership of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. The judicial nomination disclosure provisions draw on the Judicial Ads Act, co-authored by Senator Whitehouse and the late Senator Dianne Feinstein. In the current Congress, the DISCLOSE Act is co-led in the House by Congressman Chris Pappas, with Ranking Members Jamie Raskin and Joe Morelle, and is sponsored by all 47 senators who caucus with the Democrats and more than 135 House Democrats. The DISCLOSE Act passed the House in 2010 but was defeated by Senate filibuster — twice — despite receiving 57 and 59 votes. The fight these members have waged for 16 years to bring transparency to political spending is the reason this title of the MAD Act exists. This work belongs to them.
Sources
A note to readers: We are committed to providing the public with accurate, factually grounded information. If you identify any errors of fact, gaps in sourcing, or flaws in the reasoning presented in this article, we would be grateful if you would bring them to our attention so they can be corrected. Mistakes are possible in any work of this kind, and we take corrections seriously.
[1] Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) — the Supreme Court's majority opinion assumed that disclosure requirements would provide transparency for the new corporate and nonprofit election spending the decision permitted, stating that "prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable." https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/
[2] Brennan Center for Justice, "Dark Money Hit a Record High of $1.9 Billion in 2024 Federal Races" (May 2025) — comprehensive analysis documenting dark money growth from less than $5 million in 2006 to $1.9 billion in the 2024 cycle, and a cumulative $4.3 billion since Citizens United. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/dark-money-hit-record-high-19-billion-2024-federal-races
[3] OpenSecrets, "Outside spending on 2024 elections shatters records, fueled by billion-dollar 'dark money' infusion" (November 2024) — documents total outside spending of $4.5 billion in 2024 federal elections, with more than half from groups that do not fully disclose funding sources, and $1.3 billion in contributions from shell companies and dark money groups to super PACs. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/11/outside-spending-on-2024-elections-shatters-records-fueled-by-billion-dollar-dark-money-infusion/
[4] The Washington Post, "A conservative activist's behind-the-scenes campaign to remake the nation's courts" (May 2019) — investigative report documenting over $250 million in dark money raised between 2014 and 2017 by a network of nonprofits associated with Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo, used to support conservative judicial nominations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/
[5] American Constitution Society, "Dark Money and the Courts: The Right Wing Takeover of the Judiciary" — analysis of the $250 million dark money network's role in reshaping the federal judiciary, building on the Washington Post investigation. https://www.acslaw.org/analysis/reports/dark-money/
[6] The Lever, "Dark Money Led To This Supreme Court Moment" (June 2022) — reports that the Concord Fund (formerly Judicial Crisis Network) raised more than $48 million between July 2020 and June 2021, with nearly all of the money coming from two anonymous donors, based on tax returns obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. https://www.levernews.com/dark-money-went-in-supreme-court-rulings-are-coming-out/
[7] Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868 (2009) — the Supreme Court held that due process requires judicial recusal when a person with a personal stake in a case had "a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case." https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/556/868/
[8] Federal Election Commission, Conciliation Agreement, MURs 7165 & 7196 (Great America PAC, et al.), dated June 28, 2021 — documents an FEC enforcement action against a political consultant who offered to route a $2 million foreign national contribution through shell organizations to conceal its origin. https://www.fec.gov/data/legal/matter-under-review/7165/
[9] Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 68 (1976) — the Supreme Court's foundational campaign finance decision, holding that "disclosure requirements certainly in most applications appear to be the least restrictive means of curbing the evils of campaign ignorance and corruption that Congress found to exist." https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/424/1/
