A recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance has tilted the balance of political influence further toward party insiders and major donors, at the expense of the small-dollar, grassroots participation that reformers have spent decades trying to protect.

Whatever the constitutional merits of that framing, the practical effect is to further concentrate influence among those who can marshal large sums — precisely the dynamic that campaign finance law has historically tried to check.

Reform advocates will look to state-level rules and disclosure requirements to blunt some of the ruling’s effects, but the structural tilt toward insiders is now further entrenched at the federal level. This is an opinion piece and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily Bear News 365’s editorial position.