Applied to nonprofit organizations such as Gun Owners of America, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Right to Life Committee or the Sierra Club, this description makes little sense. As Citizens United notes, "It certainly is not the case that most for-profit corporations -- let alone, most nonprofit corporations, such as the Michigan State Chamber of Commerce and Citizens United -- possess treasuries laden with 'immense aggregations of wealth.'"
Furthermore, if the problem is that wealth gives some speakers an unfair advantage, rich individuals also should be prevented from using their money to express themselves. Yet the Supreme Court has said the First Amendment bars not only direct restrictions on individual campaign spending but even relaxed donation limits for politicians facing rich opponents.
And speaking of unfair advantages, it hardly seems fair that a talking head on the Fox News Channel (or a columnist for The New York Times) has much more influence on the political debate than the average citizen. Yet the ban on electioneering communications does not apply to "a news story, commentary, or editorial" distributed by a recognized media outlet, and the Supreme Court never would approve one that did.
The attempt to control "the corrosive and distorting effects" of speech by wealthy corporations therefore has a perverse impact. "While multimillionaires and media corporations are free to exercise their First Amendment right to devote unlimited funds to independent expenditures," Citizens United notes, "individuals of modest means are barred by state and federal prohibitions on corporate independent expenditures from pooling their resources to fund the political speech of ideologically oriented nonprofit corporations."
The government cannot create a pure, balanced, undistorted political debate; all it can do is introduce new distortions. And as bad as distortions caused by wealth (or visibility or good looks or charisma) might seem, distortions imposed by force are worse, which is why the Constitution forbids them.