Hawley sparks McConnell battle over push to gut Citizens United ruling

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is drawing the ire of top Senate Republicans after he proposed legislation that would end unlimited corporate donations to PACs, a key item in the Citizens United decision that has helped bankroll top GOP groups for more than a decade.

The bill caught the attention of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who criticized Hawley during the Senate GOP lunch Tuesday, multiple senators told The Hill, and warned Republicans that they shouldn’t join Hawley’s push. One senator added that the bill landed with a thud among the Senate GOP conference. 

The Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), a group run by McConnell allies, was partially born out of the Citizens United decision and has been one of the most prominent groups supporting Senate GOP incumbents and candidates with funds of this sort.

“It was pretty clear that [McConnell] was pretty understanding of the issue,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said with a laugh.

The bill, titled the Ending Corporate Influence on Elections Act, would overturn a cornerstone of the Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United decision that dealt a major blow to campaign finance laws. Hawley has been hostile to corporate America and has criticized its mentality as “woke,” especially after a number of corporations said they would no longer give funds to those who voted against certification of the 2020 election results Jan. 6, 2021. 

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In an interview, the Missouri Republican said that McConnell is “dead wrong” on this subject and argued that Republicans need to “get consistent” on this topic.

“He doesn’t like my bill,” Hawley said. “As an originalist, there is no original meaning giving corporations the right to make political contributions, and it’s warping our politics. It is giving them incredible power, and I just think it’s a big mistake.”

“The overwhelming majority of Republican voters think he’s wrong. They don’t want more woke, corporate money in our politics. You can’t complain about Major League Baseball doing what they’ve done, and you can’t complain about Coca-Cola and all of these things and decry all of that, and then turn around and have your hand out and say, ‘Please give me the money.’ It’s one or the other,” Hawley said, referring to McConnell’s comments two years ago that corporations should keep out of politics, save for contributions. 

This isn’t the first time Hawley and McConnell have clashed in recent years. Hawley also has called for McConnell to be replaced as leader.

The Hawley proposal does not touch on all aspects of the Citizens United ruling. For example, it would not change rules that allow so-called “dark money” to be spent on electoral matters without having to reveal its donors.

But in ending unlimited corporate donations, it would still greatly change the current rules on campaign fundraising.  

McConnell has been a foremost figure on the campaign finance scene and has long been a lead supporter of loosening campaign finance restrictions.

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Citizens United partially overturned a 2003 ruling — McConnell v. FEC — that the leader was directly involved in. McConnell also filed an amicus brief in support of Citizens United’s effort back in 2009. 

According to sources, the GOP leader at the Senate lunch listed off a number of Senate Republicans who were direct benefactors of corporate donations via the SLF: Sens. Mike Braun (Ind.), Kevin Cramer (N.D.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Roger Marshall (Kan.), Susan Collins (Maine), Steve Daines (Mont.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Katie Britt (Ala.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Eric Schmitt (Mo.), Ted Budd (N.C.), JD Vance (Ohio) and Ron Johnson (Wis.).

Hawley is also among that group, as the SLF spent more than $20 million to boost Hawley in his 2018 race against then-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). McCaskill raised $38.9 million during the campaign, compared to $11.8 million for Hawley, with the SLF helping to bridge that gap. 

Hawley defeated McCaskill by nearly 6 percentage points. 

His proposal also puts him on the opposite foot of most Republicans, who would prefer to further loosen Federal Election Commission rules rather than make them more stringent — like Hawley does. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a top McConnell ally, said that he has First Amendment concerns regarding Hawley’s proposal and argued that the Court “got it right” 13 years ago. 

“I don’t think we need to unilaterally disarm, which is what I think that [proposal] would be,” Cornyn said. 

Multiple Senate Republicans said they hoped one day that the caps on individual donations to candidates would be lifted and that it would all be transparent to voters, arguing that the current system is a tilted playing field in favor of the outside groups. 

“There are questions … around the constitutionality of bills that would restrict, based on the Supreme Court’s decision, an individual’s or an entity’s ability to exercise their First Amendment rights,” Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican. 

“I don’t know if you could draft a bill that would satisfy the constitutional questions and concerns around it, but obviously today, the rules are what the rules are,” he added.