Amicus Curiae Brief of
Former Members of Congress and Former Governors
Hon. Karen F. Wolf, Case No. 1:24-cv-00430-KFW
Counsel:
Evan Bianchi
Spiro Harrison & Nelson LLC
40 Exchange Place, Suite 1100
New York, New York 10005
(646) 412-5616
Former Members of Congress and Former Governors with deep insight into the nature of modern campaign finance submit this amicus brief because their personal experiences demonstrate the profound challenges that super PAC contributions pose to democratic integrity and the appearance of corruption they create.
The amici are former elected officials who served in both chambers of Congress and as state governors across the political spectrum. Their combined experience spans decades of service and includes committee and leadership positions, dealing directly with the political and fundraising pressures of modern campaigns. Many of the former members have had personal involvement in legislative and executive matters that would raise concerns under Maine's super PAC contribution limit law.
Amici have unique knowledge of how campaign finance operates, the demands placed on elected officials to cultivate relationships with major donors, and the pressures that arise when large sums of money flow to candidates through nominally independent committees. Their experiences provide invaluable perspective on the relationship between campaign contributions—particularly those channeled through super PACs—and actual or apparent corruption in the political process.
The amici listed below have each signed a declaration attesting to their former positions and their authorization to submit this brief based on their personal understanding of modern campaign finance and the risks it poses.
Maine's super PAC contribution limit law reflects a rational response to a genuine problem: the corrupting influence of large, concentrated contributions routed through entities ostensibly independent of candidates. The law imposes a $10,000 per-candidate limit on contributions to super PACs—a straightforward regulation that respects free speech while addressing the corruption problem that such contributions create.
The evidence demonstrates that super PACs, while nominally independent, operate in tight coordination with candidates and that massive contributions to these entities create actual or apparent quid pro quo corruption. The case studies in this brief—from Senator Robert Menendez to Ohio Speaker Larry Householder—illustrate the real corruption that occurs when candidates and their allied super PACs work together and when donors provide substantial sums in expectation of official action.
Maine voters, recognizing these dangers, enacted a law to preserve the democratic integrity of their electoral process. This Court should respect that judgment and uphold Maine's super PAC contribution limit as a permissible regulation designed to combat corruption and restore public confidence in government.
Super PACs emerged as a consequence of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), and the subsequent lower court ruling in Speechnow.org v. Federal Election Commission, 599 F.3d 686 (D.C. Cir. 2010). These decisions held that political committees could accept unlimited contributions provided they did not coordinate with candidates. The result was a dramatic transformation of campaign finance: money previously capped by federal law now flows in unprecedented quantities through nominally independent super PACs.
The statistics are striking. Between 2010 and 2024, super PAC spending has grown exponentially. In the 2012 election cycle, super PACs spent approximately $1.2 billion. By 2020, that number had more than tripled to $3.5 billion. In 2024, super PAC spending exceeded $4 billion, making these entities the dominant funding mechanism in federal elections. See Brennan Center for Justice, "Megadonors Playing Larger Role in Presidential Race: FEC Data Shows" (Nov. 1, 2024).
This growth reflects the reality that super PACs have become the primary vehicles through which the wealthiest individuals and corporations exercise outsized influence in elections. The concentration of contributions is stunning: in the 2024 presidential race, 96% of super PAC money came from just 228 donors, each contributing $1 million or more. These megadonors now wield unprecedented power in determining which candidates can compete and which messages dominate the airwaves.
The theoretical independence of super PACs belies the political reality that amici know firsthand: candidates and super PACs operate in virtual lockstep. While formal coordination is prohibited, candidates routinely provide guidance—through their staff, operatives, and publicly stated positions—about what messages and strategies super PACs should pursue. In practice, super PACs are extensions of candidate campaigns.
This creates an untenable situation for candidates: they cannot control the super PACs supporting them, yet they depend entirely on them for the volume of resources necessary to compete. A candidate who ignores super PAC preferences risks being abandoned by them in favor of a rival. A candidate who fails to cultivate relationships with major super PAC donors accepts a severe competitive disadvantage. Thus, while the law nominally prohibits coordination, political reality leaves candidates with no practical choice but to engage intensively with the mega-donors who fuel super PACs.
The resulting dynamic is corrosive to democratic governance. Elected officials spend enormous time and energy cultivating relationships with major donors. Amici have personally experienced the pressure to meet with and accommodate super PAC backers. This is not theoretical; it is the lived reality of modern campaign politics. A member of Congress or a governor cannot ignore the interests of those who provide the funding necessary to sustain their political career and the careers of allied party members.
The Supreme Court has long recognized that political equality is fundamental to democratic governance. Yet super PACs, by aggregating unlimited contributions, create a system in which the interests of a tiny financial elite overwhelmingly dominate political discourse and policy outcomes. Research demonstrates that policy outcomes in the United States align closely with the preferences of affluent donors, while the preferences of average citizens exert little or no independent influence. Martin Gilens & Benjamin I. Page, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," 12 Perspectives on Politics 564 (2014).
When candidates must spend countless hours cultivating relationships with seven- and eight-figure donors, and when campaigns are overwhelmingly funded by a narrow financial elite, the voices and concerns of ordinary citizens become irrelevant to the electoral process. Super PACs thus directly undermine the democratic principle of equal citizen participation in governance.
Super PACs, being insulated from direct electoral accountability, overwhelmingly run negative advertising. Because super PACs need not face voters or answer for their conduct, they are free to disseminate misleading and often false claims without political consequence. This has transformed American elections into spectacles of negativity, where substantive discussion of policy is drowned out by an avalanche of attack ads.
The effects are visible and measurable: races that once focused on candidates' positive visions now center on personal attacks. Voters become distrustful of all candidates and cynical about politics. This cynicism is justified: the political process is increasingly shaped not by reasoned debate about public policy, but by whoever can spend the most money attacking opponents. Super PACs, fueled by unlimited contributions, have become the primary mechanism through which this negativity is deployed.
The distinction between contributions to super PACs and independent expenditures by super PACs is both legally and functionally significant. A contribution to a super PAC is a transfer of money to an entity that directly supports a candidate; an independent expenditure is spending by that entity on its own initiative. The two present entirely different corruption concerns.
When a donor contributes $10 million to a super PAC supporting a candidate, that candidate knows precisely who provided the funding and understands the implicit expectation of access and favorable treatment. The donor expects the candidate to remember the contribution and to be receptive to requests for official action. This is the essence of quid pro quo corruption: the donor provides something of value (money) with the expectation of receiving something else of value (official action) in return.
By contrast, an independent expenditure by a super PAC—money spent by the super PAC to support a candidate without the candidate's direction—does not create the same corruption risk. The super PAC decides independently how to spend its resources; the candidate has no control over those decisions. There is no direct transfer of value from donor to candidate, and thus no basis for a quid pro quo bargain.
The Supreme Court's reasoning in Citizens United thus does not apply with equal force to contributions to super PACs. Citizens United held that independent expenditures cannot be limited because they do not pose a corruption risk. But contributions to super PACs are fundamentally different. A contribution to a super PAC, when combined with the donor's identity being known to the super PAC and the candidate it supports, creates a direct corruption risk that independent expenditures do not.
The amici have observed firsthand the corruption risks posed by contributions to super PACs. The case studies that follow are not hypothetical; they are documented instances of real corruption involving super PAC contributions and the expectations those contributions created.
In 2016, then-Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey who had served as the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was charged with multiple counts of bribery, in part based on alleged quid pro quo contributions sought by Menendez and received from Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen. Specifically, Melgen contributed $600,000 to a super PAC called "Majority PAC" that was earmarked for the New Jersey Senate race. Menendez was the only Democrat running in the New Jersey Senate race that year. Melgen's donations were allegedly made in exchange for Menendez' "advocacy at the highest levels of [the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and/or the Department of Health and Human Services] on behalf of" Melgen.
On Menendez' motion for acquittal following a nine-week trial, the district court held that super PAC contributions may qualify as "anything of value" under 18 U.S.C. § 201, but ultimately held that a rational juror could not find an explicit quid pro quo based on the evidence proffered. See United States v. Menendez, 291 F. Supp. 3d 606 (D.N.J. 2018). The Menendez case demonstrates that super PAC contributions are capable of being the subject of bribery charges because they are understood by both donors and recipients as having value and as creating obligations.
In 2019, insurance executive Greg Lindberg was charged with bribing the commissioner of the North Carolina Department of Insurance. The indictment alleged that Lindberg promised millions of dollars in support to the North Carolina insurance commissioner, routed through independent expenditure committees in return for the removal of a senior insurance regulator overseeing the regulation and periodic examination of Lindberg's business. The indictment alleged that Lindberg "gave, offered, and agreed to give $2 million in campaign contributions . . . through an independent expenditure committee to the [insurance commissioner] . . . to influence and reward the [insurance commissioner] in connection with the transfer of [a] Senior Deputy Commissioner."
After an initial 2020 conviction was vacated, Lindberg was retried and convicted in 2024 of bribery and wire fraud. See United States v. Lindberg, 19-cr-22, ECF No. 435 (W.D.N.C. May 15, 2024). The Lindberg case demonstrates that contributions to super PACs (and similar independent expenditure committees) can be leveraged to secure promises of official action from elected officials.
In 2020, then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder was charged with racketeering conspiracy in connection with what federal prosecutors described as "the largest public corruption case in state history." The government alleged that Householder and his associates accepted approximately $60 million from FirstEnergy Corp. through a 501(c)(4) nonprofit dark money group and a super PAC in exchange for passing and protecting House Bill 6, a billion-dollar bailout for the company's nuclear plants.
Householder was found guilty after a jury trial and was sentenced to 20 years in prison for leading a racketeering conspiracy involving $60 million in bribes. The Householder case is perhaps the clearest example of how super PAC contributions and dark money funding can be deployed as a tool of explicit bribery, with elected officials directly exchanging official action (passage of legislation) for massive financial support routed through ostensibly independent entities.
In 2022, former Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced and others were charged with conspiracy, bribery, and wire fraud. The indictment alleged that Julio Herrera Velutini and Mark Rossini "offer[ed] bribes in the form of . . . funding" in support of Vázquez' election campaign in exchange for Vázquez-Garced's termination of an ethics investigation into Velutini and Rossini. The charges illustrate how campaign funding—including funding through super PACs—can be weaponized to secure corrupt bargains with elected officials.
In 2022, former Anaheim, California Mayor Harry Sidhu was charged with bribery and conspiracy after prosecutors alleged that he had agreed to provide favorable treatment to a Major League Baseball team's stadium proposal in exchange for campaign support. The prosecution alleged that Sidhu had agreed to steer city staff toward approving the team's stadium development in exchange for campaign funding. While Sidhu's case involves municipal rather than federal office, it demonstrates the universality of the corruption problem: whenever officeholders benefit from campaign funding tied to particular donors or super PACs, corruption concerns arise.
Maine voters, through the ballot initiative process, have made a deliberate choice to regulate super PAC contributions to combat corruption and restore public confidence in their electoral system. This represents a reasonable judgment about how to preserve democratic integrity in the face of unprecedented flows of money through nominally independent committees.
This Court should respect the Maine voters' judgment. The Constitution does not require that elections be swamped with unlimited money. The Constitution does not prohibit states from imposing reasonable limits on contributions to super PACs. And the Constitution does not require courts to second-guess the substantive policy judgments of voters about how best to preserve the integrity and appearance of integrity in their democratic institutions.
The case law permits Maine to enact this law. Contributions (as opposed to expenditures) may constitutionally be limited because they pose genuine corruption concerns. Super PAC contributions present the same corruption risks as any other contributions—indeed, they may present heightened risks because of the enormous sums involved and the donors' understandings about the expectations attached to such contributions. Maine's law is narrowly tailored to address this legitimate concern. It should be upheld.
Conclusion
The evidence presented in this brief—drawn from the personal experiences of former members of Congress and former governors, as well as documented cases of corruption involving super PAC contributions—demonstrates that Maine's super PAC contribution limit addresses a genuine problem: the appearance and reality of corruption arising from massive contributions to entities nominally independent of candidates.
The amici urge this Court to uphold Maine's law and to recognize that reasonable limits on contributions to super PACs are constitutionally permissible and sensible policy. The alternative—continuing to permit unlimited contributions to super PACs—will only deepen the public's justified cynicism about campaign finance and the apparent sellability of governmental favor to the highest bidder.
For these reasons, this Court should reverse the judgment of the District Court and uphold Maine's super PAC contribution limit.
Evan Bianchi
Spiro Harrison & Nelson LLC
40 Exchange Place, Suite 1100
New York, New York 10005
(646) 412-5616
Counsel for Amici Curiae
October 29, 2025