I want to talk about the scale of political donations in the US because I think lumping all wealthy people together for purposes of “money in politics” is inaccurate, innumerate and serves the ultra wealthy, who are hiding behind people like car dealers or McDonalds franchise owners.
There is a vast, vast difference between the political effects of people with, say, 10 million to 100 million and billionaires. We know this just in the US House of Representatives on the Democratic side. Pelosi has about 115 million. Rep. Dan Goldman has 70 million. Ro Khanna has 45 million, Rep. Sara Jacobs, 70 million. I could go on. We have liberal multi millionaires. What we don’t have are liberal billionaires.
What’s happening in the US is not business as usual in terms of money in politics. We need a wholly different approach because the game has changed.
Several years ago, before he was elected as a U.S. senator from Montana, Tim Sheehy was running an aerial firefighting business that was struggling to secure clients and desperately hunting for cash to build out a fleet of aircraft.
Then he found a lifeline: As Mr. Sheehy has told the story over the years, Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire chairman of the private equity group Blackstone Inc., helped steer a $150 million investment from his company into Mr. Sheehy’s.
It was an uphill race against a popular, three-term Democratic incumbent, Jon Tester. But with control of the Senate up for grabs and Mr. Sheehy one of the few who could help tip it in favor of Republicans, Mr. Schwarzman came to his aid once again, hosting a fund-raiser for him and also donating $8 million to a political action committee that supported his candidacy.
At least 64 billionaires and 37 of their immediate family members donated directly to his campaign, a New York Times analysis found. When also accounting for money that flowed through political committees that support Mr. Sheehy, an analysis shows that billionaires contributed about $47 million in the race that Mr. Sheehy went on to win.
The extraordinary spending in Montana is part of a new era of political power for the rapidly growing number of billionaires minted over the past eight years. The Times analysis found that 300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated more than $3 billion — 19 percent of all contributions — in federal elections in 2024, either directly or through political action committees.
Five presidential elections ago, before the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling that lifted many remaining campaign finance restrictions, the share of billionaire spending was almost zero — 0.3 percent, to be precise.
For every dollar donated by billionaires and their immediate families to a candidate or committee associated with Democrats, five dollars went to Republicans. Much of that was a result of ultrawealthy people in the tech industry, who aligned with Mr. Trump’s tax and deregulation policies. More than a dozen billionaires were awarded roles in his administration.
I think you know the end of this story without reading on - Senator Sheehy follows the orders of his billionaire owners to the letter. They bought a Senator and the expenditure is nothing to them. 45 million is about 1 years interest on 1 billion dollars.
5 presidential elections ago was not ancient history, it was 2008. Billionaires have changed the whole field, making neutering Citzens United vital and why I keep harping on this Montana effort:
Sixteen years ago, the Supreme Court handed corporations the power to buy American elections and called it free speech. Montana just found an exit ramp.
The Montana Plan—a proposed Montana ballot measure that’s gaining steam—doesn’t overturn Citizens United. It goes around it. States grant corporate charters and decide the powers those charters include. It would simply remove “spending in elections” from those powers, killing dark money at the source.
The Montana Mining Association and the Montana Chamber of Commerce immediately ran to court to kill it before voters could sign on. But on April 2, the Montana Supreme Court rejected them 7-0.
You don’t file an emergency lawsuit to stop something you’re not afraid of. Seventy-four percent of Montana voters support it—including a majority of Republicans and independents. The campaign is driving toward a June 19 signature deadline—and the momentum is there.
Sixteen years of “nothing you can do.” Montana voters are doing something. We all should.
I think the hardest part for older people in this new world is forcing oneself to accept that how we always did things will just no longer do. I know that’s been difficult and painful for me, anyway, and I’m 63.
My youngest son knows this in a way that I never will - he has never known anything in his adult life other than a corrupt country run by billionaires - a country that barely functions. We don’t so much need younger people in government - chronological age isn’t the issue. We need people who are willing to face the reality of what’s happened and act accordingly. We need to rid ourselves of sentimental notions of “going back” that are a luxury we no longer have.
I know we all want to go back to 2008 and “yes we can!”. We can’t. 19% now compared to .03% in 2008 is why we can’t.
