Mayer offered us a look at how this new system works, and how it's working in Gorsuch's favor, in an interview this week.ĭark money is the nickname that reporters have coined to describe the growing amount of untraceable cash into politics from undisclosed sources. Her 2016 work, Dark Money-recently released in paperback-remains the definitive account of how super wealthy individuals and special interests flex their financial might in the age of legalized influence-peddling. So, how are we supposed to get all this loose cash out of the system? And how did it start flowing in the first place? We figured there was no one better to ask than Jane Mayer, the New Yorker staff writer who quite literally wrote the book on the subject. When he puts on the robe, any chance of the justices striking down Citizens United is simply gone for the foreseeable future. If they have to, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans will break the filibuster to put Gorsuch on the bench. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein addressed the issue in an open committee session this week, but it will likely make little difference. After all, it was the same Supreme Court that unleashed this deluge of cash with its Citizens United decision in 2010. Neil Gorsuch has $10 million in 'dark money' backing his confirmation to the high court, which just happens to be the only body with a realistic chance of removing dark money from our politics on a national scale. In a 2015 New York Times survey, 84 percent of Americans said money has too much influence in politics, while 85 percent said the way we finance our political campaigns needs either 'fundamental changes' or a 'complete rebuild.' But just 11 days after taking office, President Trump nominated a judge to the Supreme Court who last week seemed to accept the growing piles of unaccountable money in our politics as simply the way things are.

For all their glaring differences in 2016, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both ran against 'the rigged system' of American democracy.

Dark Money by Jane Mayer