Rather, the court said, spending is analogous to an amplifier that can legally be turned down or off when it drowns out the speech of others. But after an almost eerily expeditious journey through the courts, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 handed down a tortured 294-page opinion. As if to suggest the complexity and ambiguity of the case, two justices wrote concurring opinions, one dissented, and yet another both dissented from and supported the ruling. Overturning Buckley v. Valeo became the Holy Grail of campaign finance reform. When you impose an expenditure limit, you limit the speech they can engage in.
Citizens already know a woefully small amount about what candidates stand for.
The solution isn't less information, but that's what spending limits impose. To Bonifaz, the issue is not free speech but the disenfranchisement of ordinary citizens. The vast sums needed to participate in the wealth primary prevent the majority of Americans from either running in or significantly influencing the outcome of elections. According to Bonifaz, the wealth primary is the latest manifestation of a discriminatory tradition that dates back to the time of the founding fathers, when only white male property owners were permitted to vote. Eventually women and nonwhites won the vote, yet even then many states held elections in which only whites were permitted to run.