CU is a 2010 Supreme Court decision which said that corporations are people with free speech rights. Since money is considered speech (per an earlier decision), this means we can't curtail or limit corporate campaign spending. That would be stifling free speech in violation of the constitution.

U.S. law also allows contributions to be made to super PAC's without disclosing the donor's identity. So extremely wealthy people and corporations are pouring huge quantities of money into organizations which are theoretically separate from the candidates themselves. They use this money to bombard us with advertising - which often contains lies. And we don't get to know who's behind the ads.

It's very frightening IMO.

Earlier this week they extended CU to strike down a century old Montana law which was designed to deal with political corruption from copper barons at the turn of the 19th/20th century. The Supreme Court has assured us that money doesn't corrupt politics.

So, it's a race to see who can collect more money. And most of our politicians spend a lot of time fundraising. And, of course, the guys writing the big checks want something in return.