Gialed Edelman reviews my new book, Plutocrats United, for the Washington Monthly.

Anyone who is worried about the role of money in politics should take a clear message from Hasen’s book: it’s all about 2016. Polls show campaign finance to be a low priority for most voters, but the excessive influence of wealth distorts government policy on things that people do care about, like economic regulation, taxation, and health care, and that they should care about but don’t, like climate change. As income inequality grows, so will the power of the tiny donor class, which will in turn make it ever harder to enact policies aimed at reversing that inequality. There’s no way of getting around the irony: only the power of a majority vote has a chance of curtailing the power of money to undermine the principle of majority rule. Citizens interested in overturning Citizens United should consider uniting.