One person may have one vote in this democracy. But the voices of this tiny fraction of this democracy are an order of magnitude larger than the voices of the rest of us.

The citizens pushing this change deserve our respect, and their movement has enormous potential. These are not politician-wannabes. They are not looking for a job in D.C. They are ordinary citizens who have been motivated to act because they see their government collapsing. Confidence in our Congress hovers around 10 percent. The institution is politically bankrupt. And the only way that real change has ever happened in this democracy is precisely the way it is happening now: when thousands of citizens of every political stripe band together to demand something better from their government.

But as these movements grow, it becomes critical that they demand a change that will actually fix the corruption that we now see. No doubt, Citizens United is a proper target. But we need to remember that on January 20, 2010 -- the day before Citizens United was decided -- our democracy was already broken. Already, Congress was dependent upon its funders, yet the funders were not "the People." Already, the tiniest slice of the 1 percent exercised an extraordinary power over the government. Citizens United no doubt made things worse. But even if it shot the body of this democracy, that body was already cold.

Reversing Citizens United is thus a critical step. But that alone will not restore this democracy. To do that, we must strike at the root of this corruption: how campaigns are funded.

If the problem with American democracy is that our government is dependent upon its funders, but the funders are not the People, then the solution is to make the funders the People. States, such as Connecticut, Maine, and Arizona, have already begun to do this for state officials. New York City has done it for city officials. By giving candidates the option to fund their campaigns only with small-dollar contributions, these systems have removed the outsized influence of a tiny slice of their citizens. They have made the funders the People.

We could do the same at the federal level -- tomorrow. Whether a matching-fund program, which multiplies small contributions so that candidates need not take large donations to win, or a voucher program, funded through a tax rebate and a levy on lobbyists and broadcasters, Congress could radically change the way campaigns get funded -- without any change in the Constitution. For less than the Pentagon spends every weekend, we could create a system in which all citizens are the funders, and that would make Congress dependent upon us.

That change alone, of course, wouldn't solve the problem of super PACs. And unless the Supreme Court reverses itself, to solve that problem would require a constitutional amendment.