Linda Greenhouse offers these thoughts on the fallout from Citizens United, comparing (and contrasting) it to that which followed Kelo v. New London, the 2005 eminent domain decision:

A major difference between the Kelo decision and Citizens United, of course, is that in the first case, the court was enabling elected legislatures to do what they wanted to do, leaving them free to continue with economic development policies or to stay their own hands. In Citizens United, by contrast, it was the court that tied the legislature’s hands, declaring an act of Congress unconstitutional and taking away a tool that had appeared to offer some hope of restraining the flood of money into politics. That the provision had been only marginally effective, if that, in achieving that goal is less important than the narrative now growing up around Citizens United and rapidly taking on a life of its own, almost independent of what the court actually held.