Slush funds of anonymous unregulated money are now the dominant institutions in American politics, converting our elections into auctions – and transforming the legislative process into a donor bidding war.

In the last election, Pacs and Super Pacs spent more money to buy federal elections than all candidate campaigns combined. One in every $5 flowing through a Super Pac came from organizations that do not disclose their donors. In all, $2bn of “independent” spending was dark money, meaning the public cannot see who is buying elections – even though politicians know exactly who they owe once they are in office.

The current election cycle promises to be even worse: Super Pacs have already spent nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, fueled by donors in the artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency industries demanding policy favors from Washington. Again, much of it is anonymous cash: for example, new campaign finance filings show the second-largest donors to House and Senate Republicans’ Super Pacs are dark money groups.

Polls show most of us hate this system and know that Citizens United v FEC helped create it. But most don’t know that the notorious 2010 supreme court decision was only one of two legal doctrines creating this pay-to-play griftopia. And almost nobody remembers that the other lesser-known doctrine has never actually been tested at the high court, because justice department officials never challenged it when they had the chance.

But ahead of the midterms and the 2028 presidential race, this legal void could finally be filled – thanks to a Maine lawsuit that has suddenly become the most significant anti-corruption battle inside America’s legal system.

The little-noticed case that followed Citizens United

The 2010 Citizens United decision, written by the former corporate lobbyist Justice Anthony Kennedy, is known for striking down limits on spending by Super Pacs and declaring: “Independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

The sheer gall of that decision overshadowed an equally far-reaching lower-court decision two months later: SpeechNow v FEC, which struck down limits on contributions to those Super Pacs. Without SpeechNow, oligarchs would have had a far harder time over the last 16 years anonymously purchasing elections via Super Pacs, because........

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