Real Citizens United

Politics is pay-to-play. Fine. Let's play.

The honest version

In 2024 alone, federal lobbying hit a record $4.4 billion, the 2024 election cycle ran to about $15.9 billion, and outside spending by super PACs and dark-money groups cleared $4.5 billion — all of it directed at buying access, drafting legislation, and nudging votes. Your representatives, with rare and admirable exceptions, are not unaware of who pays the bills.

We're not going to pretend otherwise. We're not going to write you a wistful op-ed about civic virtue. The system runs on money. So we're going to bring some.

Sources: OpenSecrets — Federal Lobbying 2024 record; OpenSecrets — 2024 Cost of Election; OpenSecrets — Outside Spending 2024. All figures are publicly verifiable.

The math nobody mentions

Add it together and annualize across the two-year cycle and you get roughly $12 billion a year in federal political spending. Spread that across the adult population of the United States and it works out to about $45 per citizen, per year.

That's a coffee a month. That's a streaming subscription you forgot you were paying for. That's the going rate, per person, for an entire industry of professional persuaders to outcompete everyone you've ever known combined.

If we matched it, we'd be even. If we doubled it, we'd be the loudest voice in the room. And here's the real punchline: to out-spend the eight biggest single political players in America — combining their lobbying, campaign contributions, and outside spending — takes about 9.2 million people. The list is the National Association of Realtors, AIPAC + the United Democracy Project, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the American Hospital Association, PhRMA, Meta, and the American Medical Association. Their combined 2024 political footprint runs to roughly $460 million. Match that and you're the largest single political force in the country. Doing it costs 3.5% of US adults about $50 each.

None of this requires you to be rich. It requires a few million of us to do the small obvious thing at the same time.

How it works

You pledge — usually $50 to $100 a year. Your card isn't charged. Nothing moves yet.

You pick the issues you care about. Each one has a funding threshold: the number we need to put real money behind politicians who'll champion it. You watch the bar fill in real time, sitting right next to the corporate spending bar on the other side.

You're only charged when an issue hits its threshold. If it never does, you never pay. No "thanks for your support, we'll be in touch" while we cash your check.

When an issue funds, half of the money goes to a politician up front — yes, up front, because that's how the people we're competing with do it, and pretending otherwise is how we keep losing. The other half sits in escrow and only releases when they actually deliver: the vote, the bill, the reform. Politicians who pocket the down payment and then ghost the issue don't get the back half, and we'll be more than happy to publish the receipts.

If that sounds blunt, good. It is blunt. Lobbying has been doing this for decades; we're just doing it on the side of the people who can't expense a steakhouse.

What we're starting with

The first wave is policies that already have 70 to 90 percent public support — across parties, across regions, across demographics. These are the things most Americans already want and somehow keep not getting: lower healthcare and prescription costs, real worker protections, police accountability, stronger environmental and water-safety standards, and paid family leave.

If a supermajority of the country wants something and it still doesn't happen, the obstacle isn't public opinion. The obstacle is the price of access. We're going to pay the price.

What you'll actually see

Two bars, live, side by side. One is what corporate interests are spending against an issue — pulled straight from public lobbying disclosures. The other is what citizens are pledging for it. You can watch the gap narrow in real time. There's something deeply satisfying about that, and we're not going to pretend there isn't.

And about us

We're not going to ask you to trust us. We're going to show you. The amount the people building this platform take home will be published, updated, and itemized — hosting, legal, outreach, salaries, the lot. The same transparency we're demanding of politicians applies to us. If we ever start looking like a nonprofit with a yacht problem, you'll see it before we do.

Why this is possible now

A decade ago, you couldn't have built this. The payments infrastructure didn't exist. Lobbying disclosures weren't easily queryable. The audience wasn't online and quietly furious and ready in quite the same way. All of that has changed. The only thing missing is the place to point it.

What we're asking

Not your money. Not yet. Just your name on the pledge list. It's free, it takes thirty seconds, and it tells us which issue to launch with first and which legislators to walk in on.

If you read this and thought finally, someone is just going to say it — pledge, and send this to one person who's been muttering the same thing into the void for years.

The system priced a citizen at fifty bucks. Let's find out what happens when we actually pay it.

Sources

All figures in this brief come from public disclosures, primarily compiled by OpenSecrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics) using Senate LDA and FEC filings:

Individual 2024 combined political spending (federal lobbying + 2023–24 cycle contributions + outside spending), per OpenSecrets and FEC:

Combined top 8: ~$459.7M.

Real Citizens United is in early development. Details and timelines may evolve as we build. The spirit won't.