Rep. Auchincloss Criticizes Citizens United But Won't Cosponsor Any of the Four Pending Amendments to Overturn It

December 16, 2025 · Updated May 20, 2026

In November 2025, Rep. Jake Auchincloss wrote in his Substack newsletter that “when [elections] are [competitive], the Citizens United decision makes them more like auctions than contests.”¹ He urged reforms to “boot big money out of campaigns.”¹

Strong words. But there’s a problem: in the current 119th Congress, Auchincloss has not cosponsored any of the four pending constitutional amendments to overturn Citizens United.²

Outside of House leadership, he is the only Massachusetts House Democrat who has signed on to zero of these four amendments. While he cosponsored the (weaker) Democracy for All Amendment when it was introduced in the 117th and 118th Congresses,² he has refused to sign on to any of the stronger, more comprehensive amendments currently before Congress — including the one lead-sponsored by fellow Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern.

The Four Amendments Auchincloss Won’t Sign

Four constitutional amendments to overturn Citizens United are pending in the 119th Congress (2025–2026):²

• The Citizens Over Corporations Amendment (H.J.Res.122), introduced by Rep. Joe Neguse with Sen. Adam Schiff, Rep. Jim McGovern, and Rep. Summer Lee — explicitly authorizes Congress and the states to prohibit corporate election spending, with an explicit press-freedom carve-out
• The We the People Amendment (H.J.Res.54), introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal — declares that constitutional rights are the rights of natural persons only, abolishing corporate personhood for First Amendment purposes
• The Free and Fair Elections Amendment (H.J.Res.119), lead-sponsored by Rep. Jim McGovern (MA-02) — would prohibit corporations from spending money to influence federal elections, cap individual contributions, and create a public campaign-financing system
• The Democracy for All Amendment (H.J.Res.121), introduced by Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon — the longstanding vehicle (originally led by Rep. Ted Deutch in earlier Congresses) restoring Congress’s and states’ authority to regulate campaign contributions and expenditures

Why a Constitutional Amendment?

Because the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC (2010) that restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and other groups violates the First Amendment, ordinary legislation cannot overturn the decision. Only a constitutional amendment can establish that Congress and the states have the authority to regulate campaign spending.

A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, followed by ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures (38 states). It is a high bar—but it is the only path to permanently restore the ability to limit money in politics.

What These Amendments Would Do

While they vary in scope, the four amendments share three core principles:

• Restore regulatory authority: The Constitution would not restrict the ability of Congress or states to set reasonable limitations on campaign contributions and expenditures
• Distinguish corporations from people: Corporations and other artificial entities would not have the same constitutional rights as natural persons when it comes to political spending
• Protect individual rights: The rights protected by the Constitution are the rights of individual human beings

If ratified, any of these amendments would allow Congress to pass laws limiting super PAC spending, requiring disclosure of dark money, and establishing public financing systems for elections—reforms that are currently unconstitutional under Citizens United.

In the 119th Congress, every Massachusetts House Democrat except Auchincloss and House Minority Whip Katherine Clark has cosponsored at least one of these four amendments.² (As Whip, Clark’s leadership role generally precludes her from cosponsoring rank-and-file legislation.)

Seven of the nine Massachusetts House Democrats have put their names on at least one of the four amendments to overturn Citizens United. Only Auchincloss — among the rank and file — has declined to sign any.

Follow the PAC Money

What distinguishes Auchincloss from the rank-and-file colleagues who have cosponsored at least one of the four 119th-Congress amendments? Federal Election Commission data reveals a striking correlation: the Massachusetts representatives who take the most PAC money are the ones who have signed onto the fewest amendments to overturn Citizens United.³⁴⁵⁶⁷

Auchincloss alone has received over $700,000 in PAC money this cycle — more than Keating, McGovern, and Pressley combined ($140,100).³⁵⁶⁸ Seven of the nine Massachusetts House Democrats — Trahan, Moulton, Lynch, Pressley, Keating, McGovern, and Neal — have cosponsored at least one of the four 119th-Congress amendments to overturn Citizens United.² Rep. Katherine Clark receives the most PAC money of any Massachusetts Democrat, but as House Minority Whip, leadership fundraising is expected — and her zero cosponsorships reflect the standard practice that leadership generally does not cosponsor rank-and-file bills.⁷

Update (April 19, 2026): Auchincloss’s Q1 2026 quarterly FEC report (filed April 15, 2026) shows another $289,000 in corporate, trade-association, and leadership PAC contributions flowed into his campaign between October 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026 alone, bringing his cycle PAC haul to over $707,000.⁹ The new period included $25,000 from Senate Majority Leader Schumer’s Majority Fund, $5,000 each from AIPAC and J Street, and PAC checks from Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Takeda, Walmart, Dell, L3Harris, Liberty Mutual, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, the Medical Device Manufacturers Association, and the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, among dozens of others. The pattern from the original analysis has only deepened.

The correlation is not proof of causation. But it raises an obvious question: does the reluctance to sign on to any of the four 119th-Congress amendments have anything to do with the money flowing from the very system those amendments would dismantle?

Words vs. Actions

In his November 2025 newsletter, Auchincloss acknowledged the problem. He wrote that Citizens United “makes [elections] more like auctions than contests” and urged reforms to “boot big money out of campaigns.”¹

Auchincloss cosponsored an earlier, narrower version of the Democracy for All Amendment when it was introduced by Rep. Ted Deutch in the 117th Congress (H.J.Res.1) and again when Rep. Adam Schiff carried it forward in the 118th Congress (H.J.Res.13).² But in the current 119th Congress, four constitutional amendments to overturn Citizens United have been introduced — and he has signed on to none of them, even as those amendments have grown stronger and more comprehensive.

A July 2021 letter to the editor in The Sun Chronicle urged constituents to push Auchincloss further on this issue.¹⁰ In the years since, the amendments before Congress have evolved — the Free and Fair Elections Amendment would now prohibit (not merely permit Congress to regulate) corporate election spending, and the Citizens Over Corporations Amendment explicitly targets the Supreme Court precedents that have made campaign-finance regulation impossible. Auchincloss has declined to sign any of them.

The gap between rhetoric and action is telling. It is one thing to criticize Citizens United in a newsletter. It is another to put your name on an amendment that would actually overturn it — especially when doing so might alienate the PACs and wealthy donors who benefit from the current system.

My Position: Overturn Citizens United

I support the strongest available constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United — the Citizens Over Corporations Amendment, the Free and Fair Elections Amendment, the We the People Amendment, and the Democracy for All Amendment — and will cosponsor them on day one.

The Citizens United decision unleashed unlimited corporate spending in American elections, fundamentally corrupting our democracy. Since 2010, over $2.7 billion has flowed through super PACs in the 2024 federal election cycle alone.¹¹ This is not democracy—it’s an auction where billionaires and corporations purchase political outcomes while ordinary citizens are drowned out.

Massachusetts has been at the forefront of this fight. In 2012, the state legislature passed a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment, making Massachusetts the seventh state to do so.¹² Sixty-eight communities—including Boston, Springfield, and Worcester—have voted in favor.¹² In 2018, Massachusetts voters approved Question 2, creating a citizens commission to address corporate personhood and political spending.¹³

The message from Bay State voters is clear. The question is whether their representative in Congress will listen.

Corporations are not people. Money is not speech. And the voters of Massachusetts’s 4th District deserve a representative who will do more than criticize Citizens United in a newsletter—one who will actually fight to overturn it.

Read my full position: Overturn Citizens United

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Update — May 24, 2026: On May 21, 2026, Rep. Auchincloss cosponsored H.J.Res.122, the Citizens Over Corporations Amendment — one of the four 119th-Congress amendments covered above, and the first he had signed onto in this Congress after sixteen months of non-cosponsorship. The cosponsorship was filed the day after a Fig City News story on this campaign was updated with a statement from his office defending his record on the issue. He remains a non-cosponsor of the other three amendments. See: Facing His First Primary Challenge in Six Years, Rep. Auchincloss Finally Cosponsors a Constitutional Amendment to Overturn Citizens United.

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