David M. Drucker: Money isn't the root of all political evil

At the risk of turning myself into a pariah, I don’t think money in politics is a problem.

Voters on the right and left don’t seem to agree on much these days. But they tend to share the belief — it’s an article of faith, really — that campaign donations, especially corporate cash, are a corrupting force in American politics. Simply put, voters tend to believe politicians would do the “right thing” (whatever that is) if not for money and its influence on their positions on issues big and small.

That view is misguided. It’s the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of the political gravity governing the flow of campaign contributions and the strict limits on donations imposed by federal law. Let’s start with the law. (Full disclosure: My wife is a Republican fundraiser.)

Individuals are prohibited from giving more than $7,000 to a (challenger or incumbent) candidate’s campaign — $3,500 for the primary and $3,500 for the general — per limits established by the Federal Election Commission for the 2026 election cycle. Wealthy donors interested in writing bigger checks can contribute up to $44,300 annually to a national party organization, such as the Democratic National Committee or the National Republican Senatorial Committee. And the most a big-money contributor can give to federal candidates and national party committees in total is $132,900 per year.

Corporate donations are prohibited. “Corporate political action committees” — technically called “separate segregated funds” — are funded by the voluntary contributions of employees and subject to donation limits similar to the caps placed on individuals.

Does corruption exist in the system? Inevitably. Are alleged violators prosecuted? All the time. Ask former New York Mayor Eric Adams and ask Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former fixer.

But the law is a sideshow.

The Flow of Money

Think of money in politics like water flowing in an aqueduct situated at an angle. The same way gravity will pull the water downhill, donors contribute cash to the Democratic and Republican politicians who already share their views as a form of affirmation and encouragement. This is true of wealthy donors who give in large amounts and grassroots donors who contribute a few dollars at a time. In other words, donors by and large don’t use campaign cash to manipulate policymaking they don’t like — to essentially bribe politicians into changing their minds.

Republicans, for instance, aren’t staunch supporters of the Second Amendment because of campaign donations from groups that oppose gun control. Republicans protect gun rights because A) they tend to personally believe in doing so and B) most GOP voters are as passionate on this issue as any I’ve covered in nearly 25 years of political reporting. The donations stem from there.

Everything I’ve just described is true for Democratic voters and their chosen candidates regarding abortion rights. And it’s true for both parties regarding Israel: Donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) are given to politicians who back the Jewish state and deployed against those who don’t.

Yes, but what about the scourge of super PACs and so-called dark money groups?

Both can accept donations in unlimited amounts from individuals and corporations. Super PACs must disclose their donors in FEC filings; issue advocacy groups or organizations — political nonprofits known as 501(c)4s under the US tax code — are not required to, hence the term “dark money.” That’s an advantage for deep-pocketed donors and big business that strikes most voters as unfair, and it’s a valid concern to an extent. In reality, the edge is smaller than presumed because of the various legal constraints placed on these two kinds of groups.

Super PACs are prohibited from coordinating spending with candidates’ campaigns on advertising messaging or strategy. Political nonprofits are limited in the amount of political activity they can engage in; total expenditures on politics must amount to less than 50% of all the money such a group spends.

Regardless, the principle of political gravity applies.

Money from super PACs and 501(c)4s flows to politicians that those entities already agree with and only helps as much as the candidate uses it to earn the support of rank-and-file voters. As I’ve written before, no amount of money can sell a bad product. Every election cycle, the political terrain is littered with candidates who lost despite raising more money than their opponents and enjoying the backing of super PACs and issue-advocacy organizations that were flush with cash.

No matter; as I conceded earlier, the lure of getting money out politics is strong for most voters. I’ve witnessed Democrats and Republicans receive hearty applause for advocating for it. One of Trump’s most potent messages with GOP voters has been his vow to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. — despite the perception of granting favors in exchange for donations. This election cycle, Democrats like Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia and Michigan Senate contender Abdul El-Sayed are running on platforms that include eliminating money from politics (all while raising tens of millions of dollars for their campaigns, of course.)

Reforms Don’t Always Help

Putting aside First Amendment protections for political speech as money, more laws could make things worse from the perspective that money in politics is bad. The rise of the super PAC and 501(c)4, for example, is a direct result of a 2000s-era campaign finance reform law designed to — you guessed it — get money out of politics. What the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) did, instead, was empower wealthy and grassroots donors at the expense of political parties.

Before BCRA, the Democratic and Republican parties had greater control over resources, as they were able to raise money in unlimited amounts. Candidates then tended to rely on the parties for those resources, granting the parties significant sway over who represented them on the ballot. After BCRA, donors big and small wield resources through outside groups like super PACs and fundraising platforms like ActBlue and WinRed that function as a pipeline to finance candidates that the parties often oppose.

Money in politics certainly didn’t recede with more restrictions, and partisanship and extreme candidates, right and left, increased. Which is why fans of a more civil, functional politics ought to cheer the recent US Supreme Court decision in NRSC v. FEC.

The court in this case didn’t strike down contribution limits on party committees or make it easier for corporations — or public employee unions, for that matter — to attempt to steer policymaking. There is still regulation, and there should be. Rather, the ruling returned some of the authority the Democratic and Republican political committees enjoyed pre-campaign finance reform by enabling them to coordinate more directly, via advertising and messaging, with their respective candidates.

That could make the political parties more attractive to donors, as their contributions, while still subject to limits, might now be used more efficiently by the party committees than previously. That in turn could give the parties more say over who their candidates are. And that, over time, could reduce extremism and increase cooperation in American politics, which voters of all stripes claim to want.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

David M. Drucker is a columnist covering politics and policy. He is also a senior writer for The Dispatch and the author of "In Trump's Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP."