To the choice few who can donate more than $123,200 to political campaigns, congratulations! You have a newly expanded right to free political speech, which few others in America can afford. That’s your latest prize from a Supreme Court that is intent on promoting the interests of the rich, no matter how much elevating a small number of hyperelite voices effectively crushes a great many more. So here’s a pat on the back, really. You’ve earned it. Or at least you paid for it.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Exchange Commission (PDF), the latest case to take on campaign finance laws. Though McCutcheon dealt with a fairly narrow issue — an aggregate limit on the amount an individual may give to political candidates, parties and noncandidate committees, capped at $123,200 per two-year election cycle — the language in the decision makes obvious the court’s determination under Chief Justice John Roberts to invalidate a swath of regulations around money in politics.

McCutcheon, a wealthy Alabama businessman, contributed to the campaigns of 16 federal candidates in the 2011–12 election cycle and argued that the aggregate contribution limit, which prevented him from contributing to the campaigns of 12 other politicians as well as a slew of political committees, limited his right to free speech. He is not actually a constituent of many of the politicians to whom he donated (and wished to donate). That is exactly the goal McCutcheon had in mind: He wants his voice not just heard and brought up the chain by his political representatives (which is how democracy theoretically functions); he wants the ability to exert his outsize financial influence over as many people as possible. Perhaps most disturbing is the court’s contention that almost any type of campaign finance regulation — short of barring quid pro quo bribery — is unconstitutional.

“The only type of corruption that Congress may target is quid pro quo corruption,” Roberts writes in the McCutcheon opinion. It doesn’t matter that money may be used to garner access or influence, Roberts says. “The line between quid pro quo corruption and general influence must be respected in order to safeguard basic First Amendment rights.”

This isn’t the first campaign finance law the Supreme Court has struck down, and it won’t be the last. With elected officials from all parties increasingly beholden to big-money interests and spending nearly as much time fundraising as actually governing — and with the hyperwealthy given both a larger megaphone and a stronger arm — the question is, Now what?

One answer is public financing for campaigns. A particularly innovative and potentially effective solution comes from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law: Small donations are matched and multiplied by public funds, creating financial incentives for candidates to appeal to all their constituents and encouraging average citizens to participate in the political process. Under the Brennan Center model, a $50 donation would be matched and then multiplied by, say, five — making it worth $300 to the candidate.

Ian Vandewalker, counsel for the Brennan Center, told me it’s troubling that we see money as speech and that such a system means legislators spend more time fundraising than working on behalf of their constituents. But the more insidious issue, he said, is which voices politicians are hearing and how that skews policy and governance.

“When legislators have questions about the problems we’re facing and how can we solve them, they’re hearing from the people with the big checks,” he said. “Frankly, rich people and average people have very different ideas about what our problems are and what the solutions might be.”