Advocates of toughening campaign finance regulation are thrilled by a judge's ruling in Alaska this week, which they view as a potential starting point for reversing the Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgate of money into politics this decade.
The agency that upholds the state's election laws, the Alaska Public Office Commission, must reinstate enforcement of a $500 annual cap on personal contributions to political action committees and other independent groups seeking to influence elections, Judge William Morse of Superior Court in Anchorage ruled Monday.
The judge also asked the Alaska Supreme Court to use his decision to review the constitutionality of the state's entire campaign finance law in hopes of a tougher-is-better decision because, he said, he found the "credible and convincing" evidence "about the vulnerability of Alaska's political environment to corruption to be very powerful and concerning."
Such a ruling from the state's top court could eventually lead to many of the same issues addressed nine years ago in the landmark Citizens United v. FEConce again going before the Supreme Court.
"This decision gives Alaskans and all Americans a chance to revisit those destructive decisions," said Lawrence Lessig, the prominent law professor who founded the campaign finance reform group Equal Citizens and helped develop the lawsuit. "It will allow us to continue to make our case that the Framers did not wish to see super PACs. Just the opposite: they would have despised the kind of corruption we have seen recently, and the Constitution gives states the power to eliminate it."
State regulators stopped enforcing the individual donation limit in 2012, two years after Citizens United, arguing that parts of that 5-4 ruling, and a handful of subsequent lower court decisions in response, had cast doubt on its constitutionality. Seven years later, the judge said, the precedents are clearly supportive of such a limit and the agency has no discretion to avoid enforcing it.
Alaska's campaign finance law also set limits on independent expenditures in state campaigns, but those have not been enforced since the headline ruling of Citizens United: Corporations, nonprofits and unions have a First Amendment right to spend as much as they want on federal campaigns.
The campaign finance case comes at a time when Alaska politics is in one of its frequent upheavals, with a group seeking to recall Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy now suing after state officials said the grounds were insufficient for kicking the governor out in the middle of his term. Critics say he's incompetent and has recklessly tried to slash spending. Supporters say he's the victim of an effort to undo the 2018 election, which Dunleavey won in an upset after the incumbent dropped his bid for re-election a week before Election Day.
"Many Alaskans saw in the last election cycle, with respect to groups that were supporting Gov. Dunleavy from out of state and things like that, that these independent groups can be very similar and very closely aligned with the campaigns," Jason Harrow, another attorney for the plaintiffs in the contribution suit, told Alaska Public Media. "Because they're technically independent, there's no limits that apply. And that's what we were targeting."
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.