Just off his 2022 reelection that was propelled primarily by deep anti-Trump sentiment in Colorado, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is wasting no time in building lists to raise money for his 2028 reelection campaign. 

Bennet is aggressively seeking potential contributors for a campaign five years from now. Donors are being peppered by breathless Bennet campaign emails implying the only thing standing between them and our nation’s collapse is signing “petitions” that will ultimately lead them to contribute to his 2028 campaign.

Bennet is certainly not the only senator, both Democrat and Republican, who engages in this constant, year-round fundraising during a six-year term. But he deserves special recognition as one of the most hypocritical in his most recent appeal.

Democrats across the board love to condemn so-called “dark money” by shadowy groups who spend hundreds of millions of dollars attacking opponents. These groups and the unregulated money they spend are totally outside candidate campaigns.

But Democrats like Bennet have greatly benefited from these groups. More than $16 million was spent by far-left “dark money” groups attacking Bennet’s 2022 opponent, Republican Joe O’Dea. 

Bennet cited the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision known as “Citizens United v. FEC” which prohibited the federal government from regulating political campaign spending by corporations, nonprofit organizations and unions. 

Bennet’s email declares: “Since that disastrous decision, our elections have been flooded with ungodly amounts of cash.” You bet, Sen. Bennet. And you directly benefited from $16 million in “ungodly amounts of cash” attacking your opponent. 

Bennet is certainly not the only Colorado Democrat to engage in this blatant hypocrisy. Secretary of State Jena Griswold invoked the evils of dark money in her own anti-Trump propelled reelection even though she chaired a national Democratic Secretaries of State organization that raised and spent “dark money” that ended up supporting her campaign.

Bennet defensively wraps himself in the fig leaf of legislation he cosponsored to allegedly bring “dark money” to heel, the so-called DISCLOSE ACT, along with other bills with cute acronyms like the ZOMBIE Act and the CLEAN Act.

Bennet loves to trash corporations even though he became a very wealthy man working for a Colorado corporation. And he piously declared he would never accept contributions from evil corporate interests.

But he legally laundered contributions from political committees that raised money from corporate interests who then contributed to his campaign. No corporate money to his campaign to be seen here!

Far-left “dark money” groups went even further in 2022 with their cynical hypocrisy when they spent money in Republican primaries promoting who they thought would be the weakest Republican candidates in the general election, including here in Colorado.

The far-left Senate Majority PAC spent millions supporting stolen election conspiracy advocate Ron Hanks in the Republican primary against Joe O’Dea. Hanks claimed that Colorado’s electoral votes were stolen from Donald Trump in 2020 by the Chinese.

To their credit, several former Colorado Democratic elected officials – including former U.S. Sens. Gary Hart, Tim Wirth and Mark Udall; former U.S. Reps. Pat Schroeder and David Skaggs, and former Gov. Roy Romer – signed a national letter condemning  the Senate Majority PAC for spending “dark money” supporting Republican stolen election conspiracy theorists like Hanks.

Notice the names glaringly missing: Current U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. Bennet, of course, was benefiting from the “dark money” subterfuge. Hickenlooper, who self-righteously declares he never runs negative ads, hid behind far left “dark money” groups who did his dirty work for him when they spent millions attacking Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner in 2020.

The brutal truth is Bennet and his fellow Democrats who claim to want to repeal the Citizens United court decision, benefit greatly from “dark money” and don’t want it to go away.

The only real campaign finance reform that would undercut the influence of “dark money” in campaigns is to repeal all of the ridiculous limits on the amounts of money candidates and political parties can raise and require immediate and total disclosure of contributions. This would move money toward candidates and political parties who are far more accountable to the public and away from these “dark money” groups.

Several years ago, the University of Denver – no conservative bastion – did a deep dive into campaign finance laws and concluded that removing contribution limits on candidates and parties is the best way to make the political process more accountable and reduce the influence of “dark money.”

In other words, Michael Bennet’s worst nightmare.

Dick Wadhams is a Republican political consultant and a former Colorado Republican state chairman.