To: Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee
From: Brian Boyle, Chief Program Officer & General Counsel, American Promise
Re: SJ0008
Date: February 5, 2025
Testimony Concerning SJ0008
Chairman Olsen and Honorable Members of the Judiciary Committee – thank you very much for the opportunity to testify this afternoon.
My name is Brian Boyle, and I am the General Counsel and Chief Program Officer for American Promise. We are an organization with a singular focus: helping to mobilize support across the country for a constitutional amendment that would restore the power of the states to decide whether and how to regulate money in their political system.
I started out as an American Promise volunteer. I was just a regular lawyer who cared a lot about federalism and about the original meaning of the Constitution, and I had real doubts about whether the Supreme Court’s modern approach to campaign finance was consistent with federalism or originalism. As I learned more about this potential constitutional amendment, I realized that it really comes down to a simple question: Who decides?
Who decides whether foreign money should be able to flow into Wyoming’s – or any state’s – campaigns and elections?
Who decides whether outside billionaires – people who’ve never stepped foot in your state – should be able to dominate Wyoming’s elections with massive amounts of money?
Who decides whether or not the true sources of money in politics should be disclosed to the voting public?
For the past 50 years, the Supreme Court has said: We decide. Not you. Not the people. Us.
But I believe, and the proposed constitutional amendment would take the view, that the people of Wyoming – and the people of all states – should be able to decide the answers to those questions for their state.
Now, purely as a matter of policy, you might like or agree with some of the campaign finance rules that the Supreme Court has created over the past 50 years. Nothing in the proposed amendment would require you to have a different rule if you didn’t want one. But what this amendment says is that you should get to decide the rules for Wyoming.
Making campaign finance policy is not a judicial function, and the Court is not engaged in legal interpretation when it makes campaign finance rules. They are making policy through judicial fiat. And right now, the policy that has been created by judges over the years is putting federalism and American sovereignty at risk.
Under the current judge-made system, foreign governments and actors – many of whom don’t share America’s interests – can secretly pour untraceable money into elections through dark money groups.1 You might have heard, for example, of Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who has transferred more than $500 million towards progressive causes up and down the ballot.
And when states try to curb such spending by foreign interests – as Ohio and Maine recently have done – those state laws get stalled or struck down in court. Maybe we can all cross our fingers and hope that if and when these laws make their way to the Supreme Court, the Court will decide the way we want it to.
But should states’ ability to protect the integrity of their elections depend on whether five members of the Court happen to agree with that state’s decisions?
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution is necessary to restore the power of states to protect their elections from foreign and outside influence. Passing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution would put these types of decisions back where they belong.
Who would decide? You would decide.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon. I encourage you to vote “aye” on SJ0008 in support of this constitutional amendment.