The Virginian-Pilot: Column: Without reform, Virginia remains the Wild West for campaign finance
By Wes Gobar, Clean Virginia Good Governance Director
Last month, billionaires and wealthy special interests poured over $100 million into Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race — a staggering sum for a supposedly nonpartisan state election. Elon Musk’s vote-buying schemes exposed a key vulnerability in our democracy, which is increasingly being auctioned off to the highest bidder. In Virginia, we don’t need to imagine what that future looks like — we’re already living it.
If Musk and his billionaire buddies set their sights on Virginia’s upcoming elections — as they’ve hinted they might — they’ll find a playground built for them. With some of the weakest campaign finance laws in the country, Virginia offers a uniquely permissive environment for the ultra-wealthy to flood our elections and drown out the voices of everyday voters.
Virginia isn’t just vulnerable — it’s practically inviting big money influence. We’re one of five states with no restrictions on corporate contributions and one of 11 no limits on individual donations. In this Wild West of campaigns, dark-money groups thrive, funneling millions through shadowy LLCs such as “JWL34” and “Future of Education” with virtually no accountability.
The $100 million spent in Wisconsin pales in comparison to Virginia, where donors pumped $281 million into the 2023 elections — and a staggering $331 million in 2021. And many of the same power players behind Wisconsin’s billionaire spending spree, such as Jeff Yass and Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, have already spent millions in Virginia’s recent elections.
It’s not just national players. Homegrown power-brokers have long shaped Virginia’s political system. Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest electric utility monopoly, has spent more than $32 million since 2010 alone to secure policies that padded its bottom line while overcharging Virginians more than $2.3 billion on their electricity bills. Now, Big Tech is following Dominion’s playbook. Some of the richest corporations in the world — Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Google — are pouring millions into Virginia politics to secure favorable deals for their massive data centers at the risk of higher electricity bills for everyday Virginians.
The consequences are stark. In the last three years alone, lawmakers introduced nearly 100 bills to rein in data center development and protect Virginians from the resulting surge in electricity demand and costs. Yet commonsense reforms are repeatedly killed by legislators accepting donations from the very corporations profiting from unchecked data center growth.
Corporate influence isn’t limited to energy policy. It touches nearly every cost-of-living issue. Most recently, Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed popular, bipartisan legislation to lower the cost of life-saving prescription medications. In the past two years, the pharmaceutical industry’s lobbying arm has donated $120,000 to Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC.
Wisconsin reminded us that organized people can still beat organized money — but wins like these aren’t guaranteed.
Billionaires will have a much easier time buying political influence in Virginia than other states. Wisconsin limits direct candidate contributions to $20,000 and bans corporate donations outright, which forced Musk to direct his millions towards the state GOP and his own America PAC rather than directly buying influence. Political spending could have been further reduced if Wisconsin, like 27 other states, also applied reasonable limits on contributions to state political parties. None of these protections exist in Virginia, and it’s time for that to change.
The Virginia General Assembly has the power to act. It should be illegal for billionaires and big corporations to buy our elections. But unless the Supreme Court overturns Citizens United, strong state campaign finance laws are the best tools we have to fight back. Most states already have laws limiting individual donations, banning corporate contributions, and increasing transparency around dark money.
Virginia faces a clear choice this election cycle. While billionaires dismantle the federal government and corporations block reforms to lower energy, housing, and health care costs — we have a chance to elect leaders with the courage to stand up to wealthy special interests. This election, Virginia can show the rest of the country that it is possible to build a government that works for everyone.
Wes Gobar is the the good governance director at Clean Virginia, a 501c(4) organization working to advance clean government and clean energy in Virginia.
Originally Published: May 17, 2025 at 6:05 PM EDT