"I would find language that would allow for the regulation of contributions to politicians, direct or indirect, to a defined maximum per person - and *nothing* from corporations or so-called think tanks or PACs or whatever the next life form might be.

I am mindful of Albaby’s theory that doing so would disenfranchise some (the New York Times gets voice, while poor little Goofyhoofy does not). But then Sean Hannity gets voice, and in the current system Elon Musk’s half-a-billion gets a loud enough voice to drown out everybody (even if unsuccessful) and makes it near pointless for me or other individuals to participate."

I have often mentioned this going back to TMF days, but I think it is weird that we try and regulate the donation of political money instead of the acceptance of political money.

People should be allowed to spend their money however they want. If Musk wants to spend billions then that is his right (so far his political spending choices have been pretty poor, he might have gotten more attention just staging a bonfire and lighting the money on fire). What should (and can) be regulated is the role politicians have in this. People running for political office (i.e. politicians) should be required to know their donors over a certain amount of money and then be forced to abstain from any votes that would affect those donors. So if Elon Musk donates $1,000,000 to a person running for the Senate from Texas, that Senator would have to abstain from all votes that affect Musk's businesses and interests.

I know this means that billionaires just won't donate directly to politician's campaigns and will instead spend the money on their behalf, and that to me is fine. The caveat being if there is any coordination, even in the slightest, between the spender and the politician, then the politician is required to abstain from votes.

The problem isn't people spending money on speech. That will always be a thing that the richest get the loudest voices. They can afford the biggest sound systems. The problem is that our politicians are now beholden to donors in a way that is just thinly disguised bribery.