End Citizens United

Last updated

End Citizens United
Formation2015;10 years ago (2015) [1]
Headquarters Washington, D.C.
President and executive director
Tiffany Muller [2]
Website endcitizensunited.org OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

End Citizens United (ECU) is a political action committee in the United States. [3] The organization works to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , which deregulated limits on independent expenditure group spending for or against specific candidates. [4] It is focused on driving larger campaign donations out of politics, with the goal of electing "campaign-finance reform champions" to Congress by contributing to and raising money for these candidates, as well as running independent expenditures. [5]

Contents

History

End Citizens United was founded in 2015, operating in its first election cycle during 2016 with more than $25 million in funding. [6]

The organization has endorsed Democratic candidates such as Zephyr Teachout, [7] Hillary Clinton, [8] Russ Feingold, [1] Beto O'Rourke, [9] Elizabeth Warren, [10] and Jon Ossoff. [11] For the 2016 election, it was one of the largest outside groups funding the campaigns of U.S. Senators Maggie Hassan and Catherine Cortez Masto, spending a combined $4.4 million on the races. [12] By mid-2017, End Citizens United had raised more than $7.5 million from grassroots donations, and planned to raise $35 million for the 2018 election cycle. [11]

During the 2018 elections, End Citizens United organized a no corporate PAC pledge, and around 185 Democratic candidates agreed not to take corporate PAC money, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris. [13] [14]

Criticism

End Citizens United has received criticism from other campaign reform groups over their aggressive fundraising tactics. [15] In early 2018, an anonymous U.S.-based contractor paid at least 3,800 micro job workers to manipulate search results when people searched for the PAC via Google, to remove a negative HuffPost article from the front page of Google's search results. [16]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "End Citizens United PAC wants to make its name a reality". MSNBC . Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  2. ↑ "End Citizens United aggressively seeks campaign finance reform". San Francisco Chronicle . July 6, 2016. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  3. ↑ Pathé, Simone (August 13, 2015). "Campaign Finance Reform PAC Wants to Be a Player in 2016". Roll Call.
  4. ↑ "The conservative lawyer who brought you Citizens United is back for Round II". Mother Jones . Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  5. ↑ "Dem group urges candidates to campaign against money in politics". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Democratic PAC End Citizens United names 'Big Money 20' targets for 2018". USA Today . Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  7. ↑ "PAC poll: Teachout leads Faso by three points in NY-19". Times Union. October 27, 2016. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  8. ↑ Garcia, Eric (July 20, 2016). "End Citizens United PAC Endorses Clinton". Roll Call. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  9. ↑ "Well-funded anti-Citizens United group backs O'Rourke in Senate challenge against Cruz". Dallas News. June 26, 2017. Archived from the original on July 15, 2018. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  10. ↑ "End Citizens United Backs Warren". National Journal. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  11. 1 2 Mali, Meghashyam (July 6, 2017). "Campaign finance reform group raises $3.4M in second quarter". The Hill . Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  12. ↑ "New Hampshire Senate Race". OpenSecrets. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  13. ↑ "Cracks Emerge in No Corporate PAC Money Movement". Sludge. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  14. ↑ Godfrey, Elaine (August 23, 2018). "Why So Many Democratic Candidates Are Dissing Corporate PACs". The Atlantic . Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  15. ↑ Blumenthal, Paul; HuffPost (April 21, 2016). "This Group Raised $11 Million To Defeat Citizens United. So Why Do People Hate Them?". HuffPost. Retrieved August 20, 2025.
  16. ↑ Thorburn-Winsor, Alexander; Blumenthal, Paul (November 1, 2018). "Someone Paid Thousands Of Foreigners 20 Cents Each To Hide HuffPost's Negative Coverage Of A Democratic PAC". HuffPost .
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