Five years after a slim majority of Supreme Court justices handed down its game-changing Citizens United ruling — opening the floodgates for virtually unlimited corporate campaign contributions — even the decision’s most ardent opponents now admit that money in elections is here to stay.

“It’s not about getting money out of politics, it is about getting big money and the influence of donors and special interest groups out of politics,” said Jessica Johnnes, a campaign organizer with the Colorado Public Interest Research Group. The advocacy organization hosted a campaign finance reform rally in downtown Denver Wednesday — the fifth anniversary of the Citizens United decision — to kick off a new stretch in what they have found to be a quixotic battle against the influence of corporations on electoral outcomes.

“It takes money to run a campaign, that is understandable,” Johnnes said. “But it should come from constituents. There should be more representation from average Americans as a candidate is running for office.”

This new, somber tone is a markedly updated approach to combat the high court’s decision, which allows corporations, labor unions and other associations to make independent political expenditures to campaigns. The contributions — when funneled through a web of corporate offices, non-profit organizations and Super-PAC backchannels — become increasingly hard to track.

While the rhetoric among opponents has changed, the simmering anger about the influence of a wealthy few and spiking price tags on a run for office hasn’t faded.

A new CoPIRG report found that now, your average candidate for the U.S. Senate has to raise $3,300 — per day — to run a successful campaign. Applicants for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives have to rake in $1,800 daily — figures that equate to a lot of canvassing and schmoozing hours for a cash-seeking officeholder-to-be (or not to be).

A Citizens United spokesperson didn’t return a request for comment. But supporters of the ruling argue that the influx in available money actually helps chronically underfunded candidates to take on wealthy opponents who self-finance their campaigns.

Half a decade into the post- Citizens United era, those who challenge such assertions and the necessity of billion-dollar election cycles have come to terms with the new reality of the price of politics. They reached the final stage of any grieving process: acceptance.

Laura Avant, an organizer with the Colorado chapter of the public policy advocacy group MoveOn, said for the past five years, they were “mourning” the ruling. “Now we are ready to look ahead and find solutions.”

The quintessence of this change of track: Instead of vying for the big shot to abandon money in politics altogether, their focus shifts to small-step solutions, such as matching the checks of corporate owners with an army of small donors.

Right now, according to the CoPIRG report, Senate candidates need to secure at least 17 donors each day to match the windfall of major corporate contributions.

Such a program, reformists hope, would put the democratic power back into the hands of the many.

The proposal is in line with the Government by the People Act of 2014, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last year, which would allow for a 50 percent tax credit on individual contributions and which proposes a voucher program for small donors. The resolution hasn’t been touched since its introduction.

But Johnnes admitted that even “safeguard programs” such as empowering small donors won’t suffice to reign in, curb or fully match deep corporate pockets.

The ultimate goal, she said, remains the passage of a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United — however far down the road that is.

Such an amendment — despite thousands of signed petitions and two resolutions that were heard in Congress last year — is indeed a very long shot.

Any constitutional amendment requires either a national convention and subsequent approval of three-fourths of the states (38) or a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress before it will be sent to the states for ratification.

But with Republicans calling the shots since their sweeping midterm victory last year, such a supermajority is even less likely than during the days when Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., an outspoken advocate of campaign finance reform and now minority leader, reigned the Senate.

Mark Mehringer, the excutive director of the Colorado-based campaign finance reform lobbyist group CleanSlateNow, admits that the 2014 midterm elections were rock bottom for the progressive get-money-out-of-politics movement. He and the phalanx of reformists realized they had to re-group and re-focus their efforts.

“That response to the election will move us forward because we’ll have a clear message, “ he said. “We are talking about solutions and lots of different approaches, and we are trying to encourage rather than just stop things.”

— Lars@coloradostatesman.com