Portside

The way most of us “participate in electing our political leaders” is by voting. A tiny minority also “participates” by contributing more than $123,200 to federal political campaigns. In 2012, just 591 donors reached that limit on giving to federal candidates. For some perspective, that represents a little more than 0.000002 percent of the U.S. voting age population.

Recent research draws on data from nearly two thousand policy initiatives to show that “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy… while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

The resources and the breadth of the organization make it singular in American politics: an operation conducted outside the campaign finance system, employing an array of groups aimed at stopping what its financiers view as government overreach. Members of the coalition target different constituencies but together have mounted attacks on the new health-care law, federal spending and environmental regulations.

Citizens United was not an aberration for this Court. It emerged from a definite view about the intersection of campaigns and free speech.