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Jim Delamater is a retired bank president and longtime business leader in Maine.
The 2024 election cycle is predicted to be the most expensive ever, with over $10 billion expected to be spent on ads alone. As we enter this historic year, we should reflect on how we got here. Two Supreme Court decisions, Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and Citizens United (2010), can provide some context.
What I view as the court’s overreach in these cases marks a damaging doctrinal shift that altered the relationship and accountability voters were meant to have with elected leaders. Buckley and Citizens United treated election spending as protected speech, diminishing the ability of legislators and voters to set limits on it.
The explosion of money in our elections is detrimental to a healthy representative democracy. In the decade following Citizens United, non-party independent groups poured a staggering $4.5 billion into election-related spending, dwarfing the $750 million spent in the two decades prior.
This pay-to-play system often makes candidates beholden to special interests, wealthy actors, and even foreign entities, who rarely hold the same priorities as actual constituents. The result, I believe, is a government less responsive to voters and unwilling to tackle the challenges that could improve our communities.
Concern about money in our political system is not a partisan issue: 86 percent of voters believe money in politics is the number one threat to democracy, and overwhelming majorities want limits on political spending.
The explosion of money doesn’t benefit voters, and it certainly doesn’t promote a thriving business environment. I’ve spent my career in business and banking in Maine. I care deeply about growing our state’s economy and making it work for everyone. Small and midsize businesses — the backbone of Maine’s economy — simply cannot compete for political influence against well-funded multinational corporations and foreign government-owned companies.
While it would be unthinkable to permit foreign governments to craft and influence our banking regulations and financial system, foreign government-owned entities have spent over $100 million in Maine referendum campaigns since 2020. Fortunately, Maine voters sent a clear message in November, with a record-smashing 86 percent support for banning such contributions.
However, we must stay vigilant. Those foreign actors are once again threatening our politics by challenging the will of the Maine voters in lawsuits against the state that seek to overturn the recently passed ban on foreign government contributions in our elections. Their sense of entitlement is offensive to me. Foreign entities shouldn’t dictate how we live and operate in our state.
These foreign entities apparently feel emboldened to challenge the initiative because of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Buckley and Citizens United.
The only way, it seems, to restore our right to self-government, permanently rid ourselves of foreign influence, and create a better future for Maine’s residents and businesses, is by passing an amendment to the United States Constitution that gives us the power to limit the coercive influence of political spending. Maine voters supported that idea in last year’s referendum. Amendments are the tool our Founders provided to correct harmful court decisions like Buckley and Citizens United.
This is why I urge elected officials here in Maine and our representatives in Congress to pledge their support for the For Our Freedom Amendment, an amendment that gives power to states and Congress to set reasonable limits on money in politics. This amendment puts the power back in our hands, where it belongs, and can help return to a political system that is accountable to voters and not just those who spend the most money.
