As this year’s primary season wound down, corporations had already spent more than half a billion dollars supporting congressional candidates. That surpassed the $461 million record set during the 2024 election cycle, with artificial intelligence, crypto, and online gambling industries driving much of the spending.

Independent expenditures also reached new heights. OpenSecrets reported that outside groups spent more than $790 million during the eight months ending August 10, compared with roughly $477 million during the same period in the 2024 election cycle.

Brendan Galvin, director of insights at OpenSecrets, warned that the total would keep climbing. “That’s just a fraction of what we will end up with when we get to November,” Galvin told the Prospect.

The Federal Election Commission defines independent expenditures as money spent on communications that explicitly advocate for a candidate’s election or defeat. PACs can make direct contributions and independent expenditures within applicable limits, while super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts independently but cannot contribute directly to campaigns.

Federal law prohibits coordination between super PACs and candidates, campaigns, or political parties, although cooperation remains common. Super PACs must identify donors to the FEC, but contributions routed through nonprofits can conceal the actual sources because nonprofits generally do not have to disclose their donors.

The Supreme Court accelerated this mess with its 5 to 4 Citizens United ruling. The Court held that corporations could spend their own money advocating for or against candidates because independent political spending is protected by the First Amendment.

Citizens United and later court decisions opened elections to enormous amounts of undisclosed money. Corporations, billionaires, and other wealthy interests gained the ability to spend freely while voters were often left unable to determine who was financing the influence campaign.

“What we’ve seen since then,” Galvin said, “is a massive increase in money being spent in elections that is not transparent at all.” Congressional Democrats have repeatedly tried to respond through the DISCLOSE Act, but the legislation has not overcome Republican opposition.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, alongside Rep. Jamie Raskin and two colleagues, reintroduced the measure earlier this year in an effort to “shut the dark money floodgates.” Sen. Chuck Schumer first introduced the DISCLOSE Act in 2010 after Citizens United, and Whitehouse has brought it back during every subsequent congressional session.

A separate strategy now seeks to use authority that states already possess over corporations. Tom Moore, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, developed the Corporate Power Reset, a framework allowing states to restrict corporate political spending without amending the Constitution or waiting for the Supreme Court to reverse Citizens United.

The framework rests partly on the reserved powers clause, which Moore said “has been sitting around since 1819.” His argument draws upon Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in Dartmouth v. Woodward, which described corporations as creations of law whose powers come from their charters.

The framework also provides that changes to corporation law apply to existing and newly created corporations. In addition, a corporation chartered elsewhere cannot exercise powers denied to corporations chartered within the state.

“The three of those working together,” Moore said, “that’s the key.” During the past two years, at least 14 states have introduced legislation seeking to limit corporate political influence through campaign spending.

Hawaii enacted its version in May, while Montana’s secretary of state certified a statutory ballot initiative in August. Montana organizers collected more than 50,000 signatures to place I-194, known as the Montana Plan, before voters in November’s midterm elections.

The Montana effort grew from a conversation between Moore and Jeff Mangan in the fall of 2024. Mangan established the Transparent Election Initiative in April 2025 as a 501(c)(4) organization focused on passing the Montana Plan and helping similar reform efforts across the country.

Hawaii state Sen. Karl Rhoads proposed legislation after reading about Montana’s work on Prospect cofounder Robert Reich’s Substack. State Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole introduced another measure, then set it aside and helped guide Rhoads’s SB 2471 through the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee.

Indivisible Hawaii organizers pressed legislators across the state, including during the crucial conference committee process. The Pacific Resource Partnership opposed the bill and argued that it would weaken its members’ voices, but community pressure helped keep the legislation moving.

Lawmakers delayed implementation until July 1, 2027, allowing another legislative session to consider changes. SB 2471 passed the House and Senate by a combined vote of 74 to 1, and Gov. Josh Green signed it as Act 11.

The libertarian Grassroot Institute of Hawaii filed a federal lawsuit in June seeking to invalidate the law. Moore expects legal challenges to reach the Supreme Court, while supporters hope additional states will adopt similar measures and build pressure for broader federal action.