On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court managed to do the right thing with Vermont's draconian campaign contribution and spending limits, tossing them out as a violation of the First Amendment right to political speech.

Vermont's contribution caps, $200 for some races, were the most restrictive in the nation.

In a 6-3 ruing, the court said Vermont's severe limits on how much a candidate could spend reduced "the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached."

The court also struck down the state's limit on how much individuals, political committees and political parties could contribute to a campaign, noting that limits that are "too low" protect incumbents from electoral challenge and thus reduce "democratic accountability."

So much for the good news. As is becoming more common in the philosophically divided court, the majority justices took so many different routes to reach their 6-3 position that it's hard to follow their varying rationales without a program.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia took the strongest stand for the right of individuals to contribute and spend money. Given their way, they would overturn most court precedents that grant government any oversight, holding money in a political campaign equates to speech and should be beyond the reach of government regulation.

Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito joined in striking down the Vermont law. They declined to go quite so far in ruling out all government restrictions, but both suggested the court's 1976 and 2003 rulings on the topic were too tolerant of campaign limits and could be reconsidered.

Justice John Paul Stevens was among the dissenters, saying he actually favored more stringent campaign-finance laws.

Justice Stevens sees money as corrosive, since it makes citizens unequal in the extent to which their voices can be heard. Candidates also gain unfair advantage through money when one is able to grossly outspend another, Stevens said Monday.

Here, surely, is a new frontier for redistributionism. Not only should the state grab the earnings of the rich and dole them out to the indolent, apparently it is also obliged to muffle those with loud voices, while buying bullhorns for the soft-spoken. Given that statistics show tall men are elected more frequently than those of shorter stature, would the justice also favor the mandatory removal of several inches of shinbone from those unfairly favored?

In the end, the court stuck with its 30-year-old -- albeit philosophically unintelligible -- method of determining when campaign-finance restrictions go too far. Justice Stephen Breyer's controlling opinion ruled Vermont's contribution limit was too restrictive and the expenditure limit unconstitutional under the court's landmark 1976 ruling, Buckley v. Valeo, which permitted limits on political contributions but rejected campaign-expenditure caps.

"It's always good news when the Court strikes down draconian campaign finance laws, but the nation deserves more than fractured opinions with no clear standards," commented attorney Steve Simpson of the Institute for Justice, which filed a brief in the case. "The First Amendment is simple and elegant. There is no reason that decisions interpreting it should be so convoluted and confusing."

"For the foreseeable future, we've hit the high-water mark" on restrictions, concluded Rick Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "I don't think there's any question about that."

Let's hope so. The public should be told where their politicians' money comes from, the better to evaluate to whom they are beholden. But limits on campaign contributions and expenditures only drive the money river underground, where it can no longer be tracked. Meantime -- to the extent they can ever succeed, at all -- such limits become an incumbent protection measure, making it ever harder for challengers with fresh ideas to be heard.