Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, 2026
Floor Speech
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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kelly for bringing us down to the floor today.
It is hard to believe it has been 16 years since our politics were upended, since the floodgates were opened to corporate money in an unlimited way, in an anonymous way, coming into our elections.
Senator Durbin, of course, has been a hero, as he mentioned spending much of his career trying to introduce legislation and pass legislation that would put citizens in charge of our elections rather than Big Money.
So let's just for a few minutes here, because I know there are others who want to speak--I just want to make maybe three points.
The first is to just give you the scope, if we haven't put this information on the record already, as to how things have changed. Senator Durbin was doing some of this already in referencing how little elections used to cost compared to how much they cost today, but let's just talk about the full amount of money that is in politics today as compared to let's say 1976--a few years before Senator Durbin was first running for Congress.
In 1976, total Federal election spending by candidates and committees was $160 million. In the last election, in 2024, candidates and committees together spent $15.9 billion. OK. Now, it is a long time between 1976 and 2024, so let's adjust that for inflation. Adjusted for inflation, it is still 100 times more money. That is stunning. That is stunning in and of itself, but here is what makes it corrupt. What makes it corrupt is that prior to the Citizens United decision, outside groups, noncandidate groups, were spending about $144 million in elections annually. In 2024, outside groups spent $4.2 billion.
When Senator Durbin was first running, he was raising money from individuals, folks who were spending $25, $100, maybe a couple hundred dollars on campaign contributions. Individuals today make up just 16 percent of total spending in elections--16 percent. Eighty-four percent of all the spending in elections today is not done by citizens; 84 percent of spending is by corporations and organizations. Most of that money--maybe not most. Much of that money is anonymous; you have no idea where it comes from.
So let me tell you what the impact of that is. The impact of that is corruption. Let's just call it what it is. When a handful of billionaires and corporations have that much influence on our elections, an unaccountable influence--you have no idea who is spending all of that money, who is throwing these ads on TV that are being produced by PACs with innocuous sounding names like Save Our Future, Build Our Future, This Is Our Future--the impact of that is just--it is corrupt. It is corrupt.
There is a group that is being formed right now called Leading the Future--another one of these innocuous sounding PACs. It is promising to spend $100 million in the election this fall, and it is being funded by a group of AI companies--companies that are trying to get the Congress to pass legislation to essentially give these AI companies a free ride--no protection from deepfakes, no protection from the poison they are feeding our children. They want free rein, so they are putting up $100 million in this next election.
I just did the math, sitting at my desk, quickly. The average individual contribution today is about $25. That is a lot of money for some people, to give $25 to an election. If every single resident of my State--every single resident--gave $25, that wouldn't equal the $100 million commitment that one super PAC has made to this next election. That is stunning. That shows you how much power a handful of these companies have.
The only way that this group Leading Our Future can put $100 million into this next election to try to stop Congress from regulating artificial intelligence is because of the Citizens United decision, because that decision allows those companies that are swimming in money right now to be able to write an unlimited check into this next election.
So you can understand why people feel powerless today, why people feel like this whole system is rigged because even if they give $25, it just doesn't make a difference when a handful of companies can, with the snap of their fingers, muster $100 million to try to change the impact of an election on public policy.
The last point I want to make is this: This fight that we are having now in which only Democrats care about changing our campaign finance laws, in which Republicans almost to a person have no interest in trying to decrease the influence of corporations and billionaires in our elections, it is ahistorical. In fact, this has not historically been a particularly partisan issue except for the last 25 years.
There is a giant, cult-like poster of Donald Trump on the Department of Labor that I drive by every day in and out of the Capitol. It is super creepy, the idea that we have Mao- and Stalin-like banners of the President of the United States surrounding the U.S. Capitol. But next to the banner of Donald Trump on the Department of Labor building is a banner depicting the image of Teddy Roosevelt. I guess it is an attempt by the President to draw an equivalency between himself and Teddy Roosevelt. That is a pretty--that is a stretch.
But Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican, a Republican who in the wake of a pretty minor scandal, in 1904, when a couple of companies sent secret checks to his campaign and to other Republican campaigns, came to Congress and said: We have got to ban corporate money from elections.
He had trouble getting Republicans to do it at first. So he reached out across the aisle and worked with a particularly vile Democrat, a guy by the name of Benjamin ``Pitchfork'' Tillman--just a bad, bad guy. Actually, our rule XIX, which we use against each other occasionally to try to settle the tone of debate, it is in our rules because of Benjamin ``Pitchfork'' Tillman.
Anyway, Roosevelt--a Republican--and Tillman--a Democrat--got together and said: Let's ban corporations from being able to influence our elections. That is the Tillman Act that was the law of the land in practice until the Citizens United decision. For 100 years until that decision, Republicans and Democrats actually worked together pretty well to say: You know what, the people should be in charge, not corporations. That wasn't a partisan idea. It is now, unfortunately.
I am grateful to Senator Kelly for bringing us down to the floor to talk about the way our citizens feel like they don't have power, the way that the Citizens United decision has left our voters feeling like the game is rigged. But it is kind of sad that it is only Democrats down here talking about the impact that that decision has had on the influence of corporations and billionaires in our politics. For a long time, Republicans cared about trying to make sure that our democracy was fair. That is not the case any longer.
I thank Senator Kelly for allowing us to come down and have this discussion.
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