This article on Proposition 89 in Pasadena Weekly does a nice job of laying out out the numbers behind the push for the Clean Elections initiative in California. For instance, corporations put $132 million into ballot initiatives this year, effectively drowning out most other voices - where does that leave your average voter?  Chances are, it leaves them at home - not going to the ballot box, and not having their voices heard. A lot of money buys you a big megaphone, and if all the average citizen hears is the amplified message of a wealthy few you have an echo chamber of ideological inevitability: this is the only idea out there, so this is how it will be. Hardly a bedrock of a thriving democracy.