Get the Money Out of the Shadows

Why this matters

Washington works for ideology and dark money. I work for Utah families.

Every dollar spent to win an election is spent for a reason. When a Utah family gives $25 to a candidate, the reason is simple: they believe in that person. When an anonymous group spends $10 million on attack ads, the reason is usually a vote it wants later. Right now the law lets that group hide who paid for those ads, and voters never find out.

Utahns believe in being honest, and we expect the same from the people we send to Washington. That starts with knowing who is paying for our politics.

$4.46Bspent by outside groups on 2024 federal elections, a record

2 in 3of those dollars came from groups that don't fully name their donors

$5B+spent lobbying Washington in 2025, another record

85%of voters support requiring disclosure of all federal campaign money

What Citizens United changed

In January 2010, in a case called Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that the government can’t limit how much corporations, unions, and other groups spend on their own to influence an election. Weeks later, a lower court applied the same reasoning to donations, and the super PAC was born: a group that can raise and spend unlimited money, as long as it doesn’t coordinate with a candidate.

The Court assumed that spending would be truly independent and out in the open, so it couldn’t corrupt anyone. Neither assumption has held up.

Source: OpenSecrets, "By the Numbers: 15 Years of Citizens United" (2025) and 2024 Annual Report. Not adjusted for inflation.

The bigger change isn’t how much money there is. It’s whose money. In 2008, the 100 biggest individual donors paid for about 1.5% of all federal election spending. By 2024 they paid for 14.8%. About 100 billionaire families alone put roughly $2.6 billion into the 2024 elections, about one of every six dollars spent.

Both parties have billionaire backers, and both parties welcome them. But a family in Kaysville giving $50 can’t compete with one donor who can spend $50 million. When a handful of people can bankroll a race, candidates learn quickly whose calls to return first.

I believe the Court got this one wrong. The right to speak doesn’t mean the richest few should be able to drown out everyone else. Until that ruling changes, there’s a lot we can do to take back some ground, starting with the light switch.

How the money hides

Since 2010, outside groups can spend unlimited amounts to help or attack a candidate, as long as they don’t coordinate with the campaign. Many of these groups are super PACs, which do have to report their donors. The trick is what sits behind them.

A political nonprofit or a shell company with a generic name can give millions to a super PAC. The super PAC reports the nonprofit as its donor, and the nonprofit doesn’t have to say where its money came from. The trail ends there. That’s “dark money.”

This isn’t a one-party problem. Democratic-aligned groups have benefited from more dark money than Republican-aligned groups in recent elections. Both parties built this machine, and both parties feed it. Neither has much reason to turn it off.

My pledge

I won’t ask anyone to do something I won’t do myself. In my own campaign:

No PAC money of any kind. Not from corporations, not from unions, not from other politicians’ leadership PACs. Not one dollar.
Working people are always welcome. I’ll gladly earn the support of teachers, firefighters, nurses, and the trades, and any union member can give as an individual, the same as anyone else.
Every donor over $200 posted online within a week, not months later on a federal deadline.
Super PACs stay out. I’ll ask any outside group, including ones that like me, to stay out of the race. If one spends anyway, I’ll call on it to name its donors.

1. Sunlight on every big dollar

The fix that can pass, and that holds up in court, is disclosure. Even the Supreme Court decision that opened the door to unlimited outside spending upheld disclosure rules, 8 to 1. Free speech means you can spend to make your case. It doesn’t mean you get to do it in a mask.

I’d require:

Any group spending more than $10,000 on federal elections names every donor who gave it $10,000 or more, including money passed through other groups.
Shell companies name their real owners. No more LLCs formed a month before an election with a mailbox for an address.
Online ads follow the same rules as TV ads, with a clear “paid for by” that names the real source.

A bill that did most of this came up in the Senate in 2022. It failed on a 49 to 49 tie. I would have voted yes.

2. A bigger voice for everyday Utahns

The best answer to big money is more small money. From 1972 to 1986, Americans could take a tax credit for small political donations, and millions did. Congress repealed it in the 1986 tax overhaul.

I’d bring it back: a $50 tax credit for political donations, $100 for married couples. Give $50 to any candidate or party you choose, and you get it back at tax time.

This isn’t taxpayer-funded campaigns. The government doesn’t pick who gets the money, and no candidate gets a check from the Treasury. You decide where your $50 goes. It just makes a teacher’s donation count as much as it costs a millionaire to write one.

3. Shut the revolving door

Today a member of the House can register as a lobbyist one year after leaving office, and a senator two years after. Many skip the wait by taking jobs as “advisers” who coach the lobbyists instead. When members spend their last term thinking about their next paycheck, the people they’re supposed to serve come second.

I’d ban lobbying outright if I could. But the Constitution protects every American’s right to petition the government. It’s the same right a rancher in Beaver or a mom in Ogden uses when she calls her congressman’s office. So I’d go after the parts that are broken:

A lifetime ban on former members of Congress lobbying Congress, including “strategic advising” that coaches the people who do.
A five-year ban for senior staff.
No lobbyist money for the people they lobby. A registered lobbyist couldn’t donate to, raise money for, or host a fundraiser for any member of Congress they lobby.

4. A real ban on stock trading in Congress

Members of Congress write the laws that move markets, and they get briefings the rest of us never see. They shouldn’t be trading stocks at all.

In 2026 the House passed a bill it called a stock-trading ban. It let members keep the stocks they already own and sell them with a week’s notice. It left out the president, the vice president, and the cabinet. And it was loaded with an unrelated election fight that guaranteed it would stall in the Senate. That’s a press release, not a ban.

My version:

Members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children divest individual stocks within 180 days, or move them into a true blind trust they can’t see or direct.
The president, the vice president, and the cabinet follow the same rule.
Index funds, mutual funds, and Treasury bonds are fine. Owning a slice of the whole market is how most Utahns save. Betting on single companies you regulate is the problem.
Real penalties: any profit from a violation goes to the Treasury, plus a fine.
Passed on its own, with nothing else attached, so no one can hide behind a poison pill.

5. Close the zombie campaign accounts

When members of Congress retire, many never close their campaign accounts. Investigations have found more than 100 former lawmakers still spending donor money years after leaving office, on things like club memberships, plane tickets, and cell phone bills, and some accounts stayed open more than a decade. Donors gave that money to win an election, not to fund a retirement.

I’d require every former member to close their campaign account within two years of leaving office. Leftover money goes back to donors, to charity, or to paying down the national debt. No more paying family members from campaign funds after leaving office.

What I won’t do

Take PAC money, from corporations, unions, or anyone else.
Trade individual stocks while in office.
Become a lobbyist when I leave. Not after one year, not after ten.
Limit what ordinary people can say. Reasonable limits are for the giant checks, not a family’s donation, a neighbor’s yard sign, or a letter to the editor. And whatever you spend, you can’t hide who you are.
Ask taxpayers to fund political campaigns. The tax credit leaves every choice with you.

The bottom line

Most Utahns will never write a $10,000 check to a politician. They shouldn’t have to compete with people who do, especially people who won’t even say who they are. Name the big donors, shut the revolving door, take the stock portfolios out of Congress, and give everyday families a bigger voice. Then Washington might start working for the people who sent it there.