Citizens United Decision - NYTimes.com Re "For Gingrich, a Rich Friend and a Big Lift" (front page, Jan. 10): You assert that the $5 million donation by Sheldon Adelson to Winning Our Future, a pro-Gingrich "super PAC," "underscores" how the Citizens United case "has made it possible for a wealthy individual to influence an election." A similar statement was included in a Jan. 13 article, "Obama Raised $42 Million in Last Quarter, Far More Than G.O.P. Rivals." The Citizens United case does not deal with "wealthy individuals" at all. The case that did was the 1976 ruling of the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo, which concluded that since debate "on the qualifications of candidates" was "at the core of our electoral process and [our] First Amendment freedoms," individuals could not be limited in the independent expenditures they made endorsing or denouncing candidates. The Citizens United case dealt with a different subject - the rights of corporations and unions to participate fully in the political process. Concluding that "political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence," the Supreme Court held that corporations and unions were entitled to the same First Amendment protections as individuals. Citizens United's defense of First Amendment values remains highly controversial, but it is important to bear in mind precisely what it is about. The writer represented Senator Mitch McConnell in the Citizens United case.