This past Wednesday the Supreme Court handed down their ruling on the highly controversial case McCucheon vs. Federal Election Commission. In an issue that’s hardly black and white, the Supreme Court anger and delighted lawmakers equally from either side of the aisle. Essentially the court decided to eliminate limits on political donations per campaign cycle, opening the flood gates for debate over the role of money in our election system. Here’s everything you to need to know to make sense of the McCucheon case.

What’s the case about?

The case was started by Shaun McCucheon, a wealthy Alabama businessman who donates heavily to conservative causes. He claims that he would like to donate more, the FEC limits the amount of money individuals can give to candidates and national parties during each election cycle. The Republican National Committee signed up to fight the FEC alongside McCucheon, saying that being able to donate to political activities unfettered was a matter of free speech.

What have been the current limits on donations?

For the 2013/2014 election cycle, individuals are only allowed to give $48,600 to political candidates in total, with a cap of $2,600 for each individual candidate. Voters can spend up to $123,200 donating to political parties and committees. These limits were put in place following the Watergate scandal in 1974 by the Federal Election Campaign Act, which also established the FEC to oversee campaign finances. With these limits in place, wealthy donors are limited in how much money they can give in the way of shaping the make-up of the House or Senate, since they can only give directly to 18-candidates per year.

What does getting rid of the limits do?

Now that the Supreme Court has struck down these limits, wealthy donors are free to donate to as many federal candidates as they want which means that a partisan donor could give unlimited amounts to their national party of choice as well as give the $2,600 to every single federal candidate for that party. During the last election cycle only 600 donors reached the individual caps, which gives a sense of the incredibly small pool of voters who will be able and willing to influence elections through extreme donations.

There is also concern, that with the court’s ruling that political donations are part of free speech, the McCucheon case sets a precedent that could lead to the elimination of all donation caps later down the line. Without limits on individual campaign donations, there is a concern that a wealthy voter could essentially “buy” a political candidate to then serve only their own interests on Capitol Hill.