Sen­ate Repub­li­cans vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly last week for elec­tions that are com­pe­ti­tions of cash, with can­di­dates who amass the most mon­ey empow­ered to shout down opponents.

The Supreme Court's right-wingers said it was fine for corporations to drown out the pleas of the non-rich. Last week, Senate Republicans agreed.

The GOP reject­ed elec­tions that are con­tests of ideas won by can­di­dates offer­ing the best concepts.

Forty-two Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors on Thurs­day opposed advanc­ing a pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment called Democ­ra­cy for All. It would have end­ed the one percent’s con­trol over elec­tions and politi­cians. It would have reversed the democ­ra­cy-destroy­ing Cit­i­zens Unit­ed and McCutcheon deci­sions by per­mit­ting Con­gress and state leg­is­la­tures to once again lim­it cam­paign spend­ing. Repub­li­cans said no because they favor the sys­tem that inden­tures politi­cians to wealthy benefactors.

As it stands now, cor­po­ra­tions and bil­lion­aires may spend unbound­ed and unre­port­ed bil­lions to buy elec­tions. They’re like­ly to invest $2 bil­lion in this fall’s con­tests. That’s thanks to the activist right-wing jus­tices on the Supreme Court who upend­ed a cen­tu­ry of cam­paign finance law with rul­ings like Cit­i­zens Unit­ed in 2010 and McCutcheon this year.

The result is that every­one retains their free speech rights, but the wealthy and cor­po­ra­tions, who can afford gigan­tic ampli­fiers, can now use their mon­ey to buy the loud­est voice, one that over­whelms and silences those of tens of mil­lions of work­ing Amer­i­cans. The right-wingers on the Supreme Court said it was fine for the wealthy and cor­po­ra­tions to use their mon­ey to drown out the pleas of the non-rich. And Sen­ate Repub­li­cans agreed last week.

This has made the major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans very, very cyn­i­cal about politi­cians and elec­tions. The typ­i­cal vot­er knows his or her $5 or $25 or $100 con­tri­bu­tion to a can­di­date can’t com­pete with the $10,000 or $100,000 or $1 mil­lion gifts from cor­po­ra­tions and billionaires.

Amer­i­cans aren’t stu­pid. They knew what big bucks buy.

They pay for access. The Sen­a­tor will make time to see the CEO whose cor­po­ra­tion donat­ed $250,000. The Sen­a­tor won’t do the same for the work­er who gave $25.

Big bucks also buy votes. Amer­i­cans believe politi­cians’ posi­tions on issues are the ones that the biggest bene­fac­tors told them to take. In pri­vate meet­ings, of course. A poll by the Opin­ion Research Cor­po­ra­tion in 2012 found that 68 per­cent of vot­ers, includ­ing 71 per­cent of Repub­li­cans, think that a cor­po­ra­tion that spends $100,000 to help elect a Con­gress­man could suc­cess­ful­ly pres­sure him to change posi­tion on pro­posed legislation.

While Repub­li­can politi­cians cel­e­brate that out­come, most Amer­i­cans do not. And that includes Repub­li­can vot­ers. A poll in July by Green­berg Quin­lan Ros­ner Research found 73 per­cent of vot­ers in the 12 most com­pet­i­tive Sen­ate bat­tle­ground states want the Cit­i­zens Unit­ed rul­ing reversed, includ­ing sig­nif­i­cant majori­ties of Republicans.

In 2012, Mon­tana vot­ers passed a ref­er­en­dum by 74 per­cent telling the red state’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion to sup­port a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to over­turn Cit­i­zens Unit­ed. In pur­ple Col­orado, vot­ers passed a sim­i­lar ref­er­en­dum by 73.8 per­cent. Four­teen oth­er states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and 600 com­mu­ni­ties have called for rever­sal of Cit­i­zens United.

Still, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, groomed by Minor­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell, ignored the sen­ti­ments of the major­i­ty of cit­i­zens and blocked the Democ­ra­cy for All amend­ment. McConnell, who once sup­port­ed a sim­i­lar con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment, now prais­es unlim­it­ed, unreg­u­lat­ed, undis­closed cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions. He told a group of fat cat GOP donors in June that he just didn’t know where he’d be with­out them.

Well, not in office, that’s for sure. He would be in far green­er – as in green­backs – pas­tures, clean­ing up with for­mer House GOP Major­i­ty Leader Eric Can­tor, who lost his pri­ma­ry this year, then quick­ly resigned so he could grab $1.8 mil­lion as vice chair­man at a Wall Street invest­ment bank. Wealthy donors and cor­po­ra­tions reward their inden­tured ser­vants even when they lose elections.

Repub­li­cans didn’t always endorse this cor­rup­tion. Con­ser­v­a­tive GOP Sen. Bar­ry Gold­wa­ter, the party’s nom­i­nee for Pres­i­dent in 1964, sup­port­ed cam­paign finance reform in 1983, say­ing: ​“Our nation is fac­ing a cri­sis of lib­er­ty if we do not con­trol cam­paign expen­di­tures. We must prove that elec­tive office is not for sale. We must con­vince the pub­lic that elect­ed offi­cials are what James Madi­son intend­ed us to be, agents of the sov­er­eign peo­ple, not the hired hands of rich givers.”

For­mer Sen. War­ren Rud­man, a Repub­li­can from New Hamp­shire who cam­paigned for reform, wrote after the Cit­i­zens Unit­ed rul­ing, which he called rash and immod­er­ate: ​“Supreme Court opin­ion notwith­stand­ing, cor­po­ra­tions are not defined as peo­ple under the Con­sti­tu­tion, and free speech can hard­ly be called free when only the rich are heard.”

Anoth­er Repub­li­can Pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, John McCain, whose name graced the bipar­ti­san McCain-Fein­gold cam­paign finance reform act of 2002, said after it was struck down by the Cit­i­zens Unit­ed rul­ing: ​“What the Supreme Court did is a com­bi­na­tion of arro­gance, naiveté and stu­pid­i­ty the likes of which I have nev­er seen.”

Still, McCain joined all of the oth­er Repub­li­cans in the Sen­ate Thurs­day to obstruct a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to fix that problem.

Sen. Tom Udall, the New Mex­i­co Demo­c­rat who pro­posed the amend­ment, said he’ll con­tin­ue to press for its pas­sage. He must because that lim­it­less cam­paign cash is ruin­ing the Amer­i­can democracy.

Vot­ers know that mon­ey tends to cor­rupt, and infi­nite mon­ey cor­rupts infinitely.