The signal the Court appears to be trying to send is "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". It's not a new message, and not new that Congress is inclined to abridge it.
Citizens, by birth or going through the effort of naturalization have a bond to their nation. And so we trust that collectively, the political speech from those citizens serves the long term interests of the nation. Corporations have no such bond, so an essential element that is provided with live citizens is missing.
It's worth noting, that while Breyer is often considered a liberal, he has also dissented (with similar logic) in favour of upholding a ban on violent videogames: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchant...
Additionally, ACLU did file an amicus brief in Citizens United case (although the law in question was much more unambigious restriction of speech) in favour of Citizens United and while they did not do so in this case, there does seem to be an internal split on the matter:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/03/the-aclu-the-mccutcheon-ca...
An analogous situation may be access to abortion: opening an abortion cleaning is not the same as getting an actual abortion, but restricting the clinics severely curtail the options available to women (I can't find the citation now, but this was the logic used in a recent decision in a federal court about an AZ law). Keep in mind that abortion is a non-enumerated right, in theory enumerated rights like free speech are held to even tighter standards.
Ezel vs. Chicago (also from a district court, but drawing on SCOTUS precedents) is also similar: while the right to open a shooting range is not equivalent to the right to bear arms, the court ruled that since a Chicago requires range practice in order to receive a firearm license, the city must allow ranges within its limits. So far there isn't a clear scrutiny standard set for the second amendment, but it seems to be converging on "heightened scrutiny" which (again) is less than the strict scrutiny standard applied to the first.
Don't get me wrong, I am not happy about money in politics, but I am not willing to jeopardize the right to free speech (or general way individual vs. collective equation is evaluated in regards to constitutional rights) to fight it.
I can offer a candidate as much money as I please, as is my right, but in the interest of providing equal protection under the law to the voters, the public may choose to prevent the candidate from accepting more than a certain amount from a single source.
Campaign contributions limits are not restrictions upon the rights of the public; they are restrictions upon the privilege of representing other people as part of the government. If you wish to retain your unlimited ability to speak as a private individual, do not enter the public sector.
The same principle, applied by the courts elsewhere, would also strike down laws preventing public servants from engaging in certain forms of political activity. After all, they have freedom of speech as well, don't they?
I think that the most likely and most damaging response to this will be a decreasing engagement by career politicians with near-the-median people and increasing engagement with wealthy patrons. The interests represented will shift accordingly.
>>> would also strike down laws preventing public servants from engaging in certain forms of political activity
This is not the same. While everybody has right to free speech, nobody has right to be a public servant. So once the person resigns from his public servant position, she has full right to speak her mind. But while occupying that position, certain restrictions - taken voluntarily as condition for this assignment - may apply as long as you want to keep that position. You have the full right to make face tattoos and avoid bathing, but if you join customer service in a bank, they may not accept you unless you look and smell in a way that don't make their clients faint. And if you are being appointed the head of the IRS, it's better that you avoid political campaigning as long as you are in that post. Not that it is easy to achieve, as it turns out, but we should at least try. When we are employed, we give up certain freedoms - freedom to choose where we are, what we do, what we say, to some measure, etc. - in exchange for money. Not all employment requires this, but some do, and it's nothing out for the ordinary. We are not employees of the Congress, however - on the contrary, the Congress are employees of the citizens.
Direct support to a campaign and political advocacy are two different things. This is why I can believe that the Citizens United case was not completely ridiculous, and that this one is beyond reason. Your right to free speech ends at the tip of your own tongue. If you give your words to someone else, he might not be able to speak them.
In the same way, if you give control of some money to someone else, they will be the ones responsible for how it gets spent, not you. They may be under different contractual and legal obligations.
As is the case for people seeking public office. They must follow rules that ordinary people will probably never even need to know.
No, not really. Giving candidate the money to buy ads and directly buying ads is essentially the same thing from any aspect that may interest us.
>>> Your right to free speech ends at the tip of your own tongue.
This is obviously false. If that were true, we could not have free press, or free TV, or any electronic or paper media. What we would have is what people in USSR had - they were free to talk about politics in their own kitchen, but once they said anything in public or tried any political action, they were suppressed. This is not freedom, this is a mockery of it. And Founding Fathers clearly never intended to treat freedom of speech that narrow - as a freedom to produce any sounds you like with your throat and tongue. For a functioning democracy, much broader freedoms - freedoms to publish your opinion as widely as you can and engage in discussion with as many people as you can, and exercise any political actions you can (excluding violence and other rights violations, of course) - are absolutely necessary.
>>> if you give control of some money to someone else, they will be the ones responsible for how it gets spent, not you
This is false, too. If you give somebody money and say "I want you to hire a killer to murder this guy", you both would be part of criminal conspiracy. That's how mafia bosses get jailed.
>>> As is the case for people seeking public office. They must follow rules that ordinary people will probably never even need to know.
People seeking office have same rights as everybody else - because they are everybody else. Any citizen can seek office and has right to do so. When in the office, they have to accept certain limits that come with the job, but when seeking office they are not under any obligation yet, and have absolutely equal rights with any random citizen. All those "campaign finance" laws are just a futile populistic attempt to control political discourse, and Supreme Court is routinely shutting them down as infringing people's liberties, and rightfully so.
Just from what I see here, there are contradictions. Political candidates are at once both ventriloquist dummies and freewilled adults. Donors are potentially liable for fraudulent campaigning. Challengers and incumbents should play by a different set of rules.
I'm sure that we both consider ourselves fortunate that the other is not a Supreme Court Justice.
Money is the ONLY speech heard by career politicians