How do you feel about that, people? On the one hand, this cannot possibly be a helpful step forward. On the other hand, we already live in a country where billionaires can spend endless amounts of cash trying to influence elections with their own private groups. The Koch brothers’ group has spent more than $7 million on ads in North Carolina against Senator Kay Hagan, and there isn’t even a Republican candidate yet. How much farther could we sink?

“They can now do even worse things,” predicted Fred Wertheimer, the long-suffering leader of Democracy 21, a nonprofit that lobbies for campaign finance reform. There’s a big difference, he claims, between an independent group that has to at least pretend it’s not coordinating its message with a political party, and a rich guy simply “going to a leader in Congress and saying: ‘I’m going to write you a check today for $2.5 million, providing I know what your position is on the following. ...’ ”

Wertheimer has been working on this issue for a long time. “Let me see if I can add it up, 41 — no! — 43 years,” he said. “I started with Common Cause in 1971, and I was assigned to two issues: campaign finance reform and legislation to end the Vietnam War.”

And, you know, now the Vietnam War is over.

So Fred Wertheimer is not going to give up on this issue. But what about the rest of us? The vast, vast majority of Americans believe there should be some kind of cap on the amount of money candidates can take in and spend. However, they don’t generally want to master the details of the independent expenditure-only committees or the aggregate spending cap. It’s tough enough being a concerned citizen. You’ve got to be able to identify your state senator and have an opinion on the level of pre-K funding in the municipal budget. There’s a limit.

The downside to the decision is pretty clear, unless you are of the opinion that what this country really needs is more power to the plutocrats. But let’s try to be positive for a minute, and look at the plusses:

Potential upside of opening the door to bigger campaign contributions from rich people:

1) Perhaps Justice Roberts was trying to pile up some right-wing cred so that he can swing left on the Obamacare contraception rule. O.K., I’m totally making that one up.