> It does not say that the government cannot prevent candidates from taking unlimited amounts of money for their campaigns.

Sure, they're just making a documentary. That happens to come out during an election campaign. And it's advertised heavily with the same language as campaign slogans. And given away for free to anyone who will listen.

But it's not political spending, it's free speech.

The problem is it's both.

We're still effectively in a situation where large interests can collectively pool their resources together anonymously to win far more influence than the people who are supposed to be democratically represented here.

But more perversely, it's hijacking free speech as a backdoor loophole into political gerrymandering. For every Sierra Club citizen's group, there are far more WalMarts or Koch Industries with far deeper pockets. The Sierra Club dues-paying members are being drowned out by the voices of the few and wealthy -- again, it's looking like an oligarchy, not a representative democracy. Yes, you can't stop something like that without limiting free speech, which of course nobody wants either.

As far as I see it, once a loophole like this is identified, you can either argue for abolishing all campaign finance laws (since we've found ways around them), or you reconcile campaign finance laws with free speech that looks like and quacks like campaign expenditures.

What the legal framework for that would be, you're right, I don't know. Call it overturning McCutcheon vs. FEC if you don't want to call it Citizens United. Or just call it Campaign Finance Reform. There's no single boogeyman here, it's a refactor of the system we're talking about.