Rep. Israel in NYT oped:

Since then, I’ve spent roughly 4,200 hours in call time, attended more than 1,600 fund-raisers just for my own campaign and raised nearly $20 million in increments of $1,000, $2,500 and $5,000 per election cycle. And things have only become worse in the five years since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which ignited an explosion of money in politics by ruling that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in elections.

I saw the consequences firsthand.

As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, I was invited to glamorous Washington galas, the ones where thousands of eyes make no eye contact, where pupils constantly rove in search of someone more powerful. At one dinner, in 2012, I was chatting with a powerful Republican congressional colleague. Despite the fact that the Democrats were in the minority, our campaign committee had in recent years equaled or surpassed the G.O.P. in fund-raising. My colleague amiably congratulated me and then added, “But in the end our guys will have more super PAC money than your guys.”