[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 14 (Wednesday, January 21, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H1128-H1129]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                    CITIZENS UNITED 16TH ANNIVERSARY

  (Mr. Morelle of New York was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on the 16th anniversary of the 
United States Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, a decision that

[[Page H1129]]

disfigured our political landscape, reorienting power away from voters 
and toward corporate and wealthy special interests.
  In Citizens United, a 5-4 conservative Court majority endorsed almost 
unlimited political spending by corporations and wealthy individuals, 
and alongside several subsequent Federal Court rulings, demolished 
longstanding limits designed to prevent undue influence in our 
politics.
  It is well beyond time for Congress to pass a comprehensive campaign 
finance reform package to protect our constituents from the widespread 
political corruption that Citizens United unleashed.
  Since 2010, more than $10 billion in corporate and dark money has 
saturated every aspect of our politics. Super-PACs and dark money 
groups now spend vast sums to influence, and sometimes determine, 
election outcomes while shielding their donors from public scrutiny. 
Compounding the problem, the Federal Election Commission has too often 
failed to enforce the law, leaving voters vulnerable and unable to 
discern who is trying to influence them and why.
  We know that transparency is a baseline requirement for a functioning 
democracy. We know, too, that its absence erodes public trust in 
politics and fuels the belief that the system is rigged for wealthy 
elites and insiders. Most troubling, however, is that Citizens United 
threatens to compromise the incentives of those of us who serve in 
public office.
  House campaigns now require previously unimaginable sums of money. 
Members spend far too much time courting wealth or corporate donors 
rather than engaging with constituents.
  Americans reasonably question whether this imbalance helps explain 
why policies related to taxes, healthcare, corporate regulation, and 
environmental protection so often favor powerful interests over working 
families, families who are struggling with an affordability crisis that 
this administration has exacerbated.
  While Citizens United greatly harmed our body politic, we will not 
let it prove fatal. In a 1938 address to Congress, President Franklin 
D. Roosevelt issued a stark warning: `` . . . the liberty of a 
democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private 
power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state 
itself.''
  House Democrats recognize the fierce urgency of this warning. At the 
request of Leader Hakeem Jeffries, I am coordinating a comprehensive 
anticorruption legislative agenda to restore fairness, transparency, 
and a requisite principle of our Republic, that government must serve 
the people, not the highest bidder.
  This sweeping agenda will address corruption across all three 
branches of government as well as, critically, unfettered corporate 
influence in our broken campaign finance system.
  The package will include pieces of legislation that House Democrats 
have long championed, like the DISCLOSE Act, that will shine a light on 
the dark money donors that seek to purchase the outcomes of our 
elections. It will fundamentally reform the FEC, so our Federal 
campaign finance laws no longer go unenforced.
  Indeed, at present, the FEC has no quorum and cannot function in a 
law enforcement capacity at all. House Democrats will put a cop back on 
the beat.
  Vitally, House Democrats will move to ratify a constitutional 
amendment to overturn the horrific Citizens United decision.
  House Democrats will ensure this package reflects the pressing reform 
interests of Americans from coast to coast, Americans who demand an end 
to the culture of corruption endemic in Washington.
  While Citizens United did not create every problem in our politics, 
it has undeniably enhanced the power of the wealthiest few at the 
expense of the many. When a single billionaire spends more on an 
election than countless thousands of voters combined, the principle 
that every voice counts equally in our political system withers. We 
must, and we can, remedy the rot at the deeply misguided Citizens 
United decision introduced into American politics.
  As ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, the 
committee with jurisdiction over campaign finance legislation, I look 
forward to continuing to work to restore trust and honesty to American 
governance.

                          ____________________