Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, 2026

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, let me first thank Senator Kelly for coordinating this unfortunate commemoration of a truly disgraceful decision by the Republican appointees of the Supreme Court 16 years ago.

This decision opened the floodgates of our politics to billions and billions of dollars in dark money, and those billions and billions in dark money have distorted our political process in ways that are obvious and evident to everybody who works in this building. Some are winners from that dark money spent, and some are losers from that dark money spending, but everybody sees it.

Billionaire spending in our elections is up 160 times. That is 160 times more billionaire spending in our elections now that billionaires can pump money in by the millions. Just 100 families poured a recordbreaking $2.6 billion into Federal elections in 2024. I don't know how democracy survives in an environment in which 100 superwealthy families are dumping $2.6 billion in special interest spending, influence spending, into our elections.

This is not a hypothetical problem.

I care a lot about climate change, and I see what is happening to our coasts, particularly in Rhode Island. I was here before the Citizens United decision, when robust, meaningful, bipartisan climate legislation was constant here in the Senate. I can think of four major bipartisan bills here in the Senate. And I remember my friend John McCain running for President, carrying the Republican banner into that Presidential election with a completely solid and respectable climate platform.

Well, right after Citizens United, all of that stopped. The barrage of fossil fuel dark money into our politics killed bipartisanship on climate change instantly.

It is still a problem today. Just yesterday, I asked to move a resolution that declared that climate change is not a hoax, that climate science is sound science, and that research into the effects of climate change should continue, and Republicans objected to that simple resolution.

The fossil fuel industry bought that obstruction of climate legislation for 16 years now with money. They poured $450 million into political influence spending during the 2024 cycle, and that is only the identifiable money. Then there is the dark money, and we don't know how big that number was.

We are already seeing the climate problem cascade into a homeowners insurance crisis, cascade into a crisis of mortgage unavailability and ultimately home value losses. It is already happening in Florida, for instance. So this is real, with real consequences for regular Americans.

There was a big flaw in the Citizens United decision. The Citizens United decision hung on two assertions of fact by that slim Republican majority that warped our politics for the billionaires. Those two false facts were that all of this new spending was going to be independent of political campaigns--that was never tested, never vetted, never litigated. That was a fact that was invented behind the curtains of the Supreme Court by those five Justices. History shows since then that had a real factfinding effort been undertaken, it would have been clear that this spending is not at all independent of political campaigns.

But here is where it is indisputable. The Court also held--those five Judges--that all of this unlimited billions that they were letting loose into our politics would be transparent, that voters would know who was behind the money. Well, in 2024, $1.9 billion in money was spent in elections that we don't know who is behind. That is a $1.9 billion factual rebuke to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. It simply isn't true.

So that decision hangs on a false fact that was found by a Court that shouldn't even be doing factfinding and which for 16 years those five Justices have scrupulously refused to correct even as the falsity of the fact upon which their decision depended has been proven over and over and over again.

I will close by pointing to the DISCLOSE Act--a bill that can remedy this by requiring contributions over 10 grand into a political race to be disclosed by the actual donor. No more hiding behind a 501(c)(3) that converts to a 501(c)(4) that sends it to a super Pac that sends it to the election. No, you go all the way back to the actual, real donor.

We should pass that bill. Every time we brought it up, every Republican has voted to defend dark money, and every Democrat has voted to rid our politics of this corrupting scourge. Every time, every Republican, every Democrat. It is a clear divide, a clear difference between us. And the public is with us. The public is infuriated that big, secretive special interests can control our politics from behind the scenes with massive dark money contributions.

Last point. If you can make an enormous dark money contribution, you can threaten or promise to make an enormous dark money contribution, and those threats and promises will never be seen. It is the core of political corruption to make decisions based on secret threats and promises about massive political spending.

We have to get rid of this. The decision was ill-founded, factually wrong, and needs to be corrected.

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