The political maneuver to shape the rules for the Democratic Presidential Primary 2028 is underway. It must be assumed that it is too early to think about 2028, especially if Democrats can take back all or part of the congress in 2026.
If Democrats return to power in the congress, Trump will be the lambest Lamme ducks, and attention will soon shift to 2028. If earlier presidential primary cycles are an indication, the first democratic primary debate will take place by the summer of 2027, and the first primary games will be in early 2028.
Senator Bernie Sanders and several of his senate -democratic colleagues don’t waste time to make a leap on the rules for 2028.
In a letter to the Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and DNC chairman Ken Martin, Sanders, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Jeff Merkley (D-Or), wrote Peter Welch (D-VT), Tina Smith (D-MN), Ed Markey (D-Ma) and Chris van Hollen (D-MD):
We cannot allow billionaires and powerful business interests to continue to undermine democracy by inapprising unlimited amounts of money into the political process.
As you know, the 2010 decision of the Supreme Court on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has been a disaster for our country. As Senator Schumer rightly stated: “Destroying Citizens United is probably more important than any other thing we can do to maintain this great and great democracy.” Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has also condemned the influence of dark money in democratic primaries and says that he “will bring a resolution about this and I will urge our party to come up with solutions, so that we have realized our candidates and campaigns that we have to live our values.”
We support the legislation to fully reform campaign financing to remove the corrosive influence of money in our elections, also by destroying the Citizens United decision.
But we don’t have to wait until then. We can now take action to get billionaire Super PACs and dark money from democratic primaries. In recent election cycles, right-wing billionaires have issued hundreds of millions of dollars financing Super PACs to dominate in our primaries.
In addition to intervening in democratic primaries, it is not uncommon for the same super PACs and dark money groups to finance general election campaigns where they work overtime to defeat Democrats. The result: they have defeated a number of excellent members in the house and the Senate. That is unacceptable.
Getting super PAC money and dark money from democratic primaries is not a cake in the Sky Dream. The Democratic Party of Arizona has recently taken steps to prohibit Super PAC money from primaries by assuming a resolution that is committed to “as far as possible ensure that candidates in democratic primaries are not benefited from, depending on or chosen for external or independent election procedures” and a trial is launching a process.
We urge our national democratic party to do the same. Before our party can claim the reform of campaign financing, we must take action to prevent the billionaire from super PACs to control democratic primaries. The American people is disgusted by a corrupt political system with which Elon Musk can spend $ 270 million to choose Donald Trump. They want change. We can change.
If our opposition against Citizens United is taken seriously, we must start cleaning our own house. Super PAC money and dark money should be banned from democratic primaries. We congratulate the Arizona Democratic Party for doing that precisely in their recent convention. The National Democratic Party must follow.
The Senate Democrats who signed the letter are some of the most progressive and progressive members of that body.
The senators also have correct.
The Democratic Party could easily ban Super PACs from their primaries. In fact, in 2024 one only has to look at the Republicans primarily to see what can happen if Super PACs increase their influence in a party. Trump didn’t have much of an official campaign operation, but almost everything in terms of money flowed through a series of super PACs. The Ron Desantis campaign was even worse. A Super Pac was essentially the Desantis campaign.
Democrats cannot be taken seriously in the reform of campaign financing until they get on and clean up their own process.
The reality is that even if Democrats had control over the entire federal government and would have a ban on citizens in the law, it would probably be destroyed by the conservative majority for the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has spent almost 50 years the campaign financing legislation, and because the current conservative scotus -majority is more extreme than previous, it is unlikely that everything that Democrats could pass would survive the Supreme Court.
The improbability of a reform of the federal campaign funding ban that the courts survives is why it is vital for Democrats to at least prohibit super PAC money in the presidential primary.
Democrats cannot determine what the Supreme Court could do, but they can and must control their own presidential nomination process.
What do you think of the letter from the senators to the DNC? Let’s discuss it in the comments below.
