Jeff Clements, CEO of American Promise, issued the following statement in reaction to the unprecedented spending in the 2024 election:
“Voters have had enough with a political system that is broken, divided, and ineffective. They believe the system is broken because it is beholden to elites – billionaires, corporations, and even foreign actors – who use their unlimited financial resources to influence the outcomes in races. Eight out of 10 voters believe that political spending is a threat to democracy. Even before the general election started, decisive majorities of voters from both parties responded that reducing the influence of money in politics should be a top priority for Congress and the president to address.
“According to exit poll data from Election Day, nearly three-fourths of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country, with nearly 30% of voters expressing ‘anger.’ President-elect Donald Trump won over this electorate on a populist movement powered by grassroots voters who felt that the political system stopped working for them. He should use his office to rebuild a system that is responsive and accountable to American voters. As Vice-President-elect JD Vance recently noted, ‘The whole conduit of money into politics is fundamentally broken; I think we have to fix that.’ This can only be achieved by reversing the concentration of political power in the hands of billionaires and foreign actors, and putting power back in the hands of everyday Americans.
“For decades, Supreme Court overreach stripped the ability of states and Congress to meaningfully control election spending and restrict the flow of foreign money into races. Spending in federal election cycles has doubled in just the last 10 years since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision, with no indication that the spending arms race will slow down. This is a problem that requires a constitutional solution. American Promise’s For Our Freedom Amendment is a permanent solution that has support from overwhelming majorities of Republicans and Democrats and 22 states. The new Congress should prioritize passage of the amendment and take a giant step in fixing our broken government.”
