American Promise Statement on Introduction of House Joint Resolution 191
From American Promise: Congressman Tom Barrett of Michigan recently announced the introduction of House Joint Resolution 191, the Constitutional Campaign Finance Reform Amendment, which proposes an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would restore the ability of lawmakers to set reasonable rules for money in politics. As Jeff Clements, the co-founder and CEO of American Promise put it, this introduction “marks a meaningful step towards reclaiming the American people’s freedom to decide the role of money in politics.”
Four years after Supreme Court ruling, more candidates repay campaign loans with post-election cash
From OpenSecrets: In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned restrictions on whether candidates could repay personal loans to their campaign committees with contributions received after the election. Previously, candidates could only repay themselves up to $250,000 with money received no later than 20 days after the election. Now there are no limits on the amount or when it can be received. The average amount loaned by a self-loaning candidate has increased by 40% from 2020 to 2022. Candidates are able to loan their committees millions of dollars, and then receive donations after the election that flow directly from the committee into their own pockets as they repay themselves.
More than $200 million later, Tom Steyer’s second bid for elected office is done
From NBC News: Billionaire Tom Steyer has spent more than half a billion dollars on failed bids for political office. After spending $300 million on his campaign for President in 2020, he spent more than $215 on his bid for Governor of California this year, where he finished outside the top 2 in the primary election on June 9th. Steyer’s spending represented more than two-thirds of all spending in the race, nearly 20 times the $11.7 million spent on ads by the second-highest spender, Xavier Becerra.
They Are Top Spenders in the Midterms. And They Hate Each Other
From The New York Times: Two major Super PACs spending millions of dollars to influence the 2026 midterms, Public First and Leading The Future, are both backed by major AI companies and in some cases supporting the same candidates. The two PACs, however, mirror the rivalry of their main funders: Anthropic for Public First and OpenAI for Leading the Future. The co-head of Public First has stated that his Super PAC exists to “thwart” Leading the Future, going so far as to force Leading the Future to not spend to promote a candidate they both supported by threatening to pull its own funding. Both PACs have taken shots at each other in public statements, and many candidates, particularly Democrats, have tried to stay away from the AI debate for fear of angering one PAC by receiving support from the other.
