The court noted that candidates spending their own money reduce their susceptibility to coercive pressures, and hence serve the purported purpose of regulation -- preventing corruption. So the court rejected the limits on candidates' personal expenditures, and dismissed as merely "ancillary" the objective of "equalizing the financial resources of candidates." Furthermore, in 2001 the court affirmed the limits on party-coordinated expenditures because they are "tailor-made to undermine contribution limits." With that in mind, reread, four paragraphs above, the third provision of the Millionaires' Amendment.

So, that amendment punishes candidates who use their own noncorrupting money -- self-financing candidates cannot corrupt themselves -- to disseminate their political speech. Such candidates are penalized for exercising a fundamental right -- political speech -- that Congress cannot constitutionally curtail.

The amendment does this by increasing the access of candidates opposed by wealthy candidates to what the authors of McCain-Feingold supposedly considered the corrupting sort of money -- political contributions from donors who can give triple the amount that McCain-Feingold says can corrupt (or in the case of Senate candidates, six times that amount).

Furthermore, incumbents can benefit from the Millionaires' Amendment even when they have amassed, as most can, substantial war chests. McCain-Feingold's authors wrote this provision while pretending to reduce the influence of donors, but while actually engaged in incumbent protection.

Davis' appeal to the Supreme Court asks: "If the answer to the corrupting influence of campaign donations is the application of uniform limits, how can the answer to noncorrupting expenditures be found in higher limits made available only to those candidates most susceptible to corruption?" If the court answers that question reasonably, it will accelerate the unraveling of McCain-Feingold, the most pernicious -- and for incumbents, the most audaciously self-serving -- law ever enacted to abridge First Amendment freedoms. Meanwhile, both parties increasingly try to recruit self-financing candidates, because "reforms" imposing limits on the size of contributions have increased the cost, in candidates' time and money, of raising campaign funds.

In 1976, the court stressed how crucial it is "that candidates have the unfettered opportunity to make their views known." In 2003, however, the court affirmed McCain-Feingold's fetters on political advocacy. The court has some contradictions to correct and an immediate reason -- the Millionaires' Amendment -- to begin.