of wealth- and income-protection." In their study, Gilens and Page reached these conclusions: E. J. Dionne Jr. described what he considers the effects of ideological and oligarchical interests on the judiciary. The journalist, columnist, and scholar interprets recent Supreme Court decisions as ones that allow wealthy elites to use economic power to influence political outcomes in their favor. In speaking about the Supreme Court's McCutcheon v. FEC and Citizens United v. FEC decisions, Dionne wrote: "Thus has this court conferred on wealthy people the right to give vast sums of money to politicians while undercutting the rights of millions of citizens to cast a ballot." Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman wrote: A November 2022 study by Pew Research Center showed that majorities in both the Republican and Democratic parties held increasingly negative views of major financial institutions and large corporations. Gerrymandering Gerrymandering is the practice of shaping the boundaries of electoral districts for partisan advantage—those boundaries being reviewed and usually changed after every United States census, i.e. every ten years. Gerrymandering involves what's commonly called "cracking and packing". "Cracking" is the process of moving the boundaries of districts to spreads opposition voters thinly enough across many districts so that they constitute a safe margin below 50%. most districts dilute their power. are moved to of voters by moving the . Cracking spreads opposition voters thinly across many districts to dilute their power. "Packing" is the process of concentrating opposition voters in one or more (but always a minority of) districts, to "waste" opposition votes. Used almost since the founding of the United States (the term was coined in 1810 after a review of Massachusetts's redistricting maps of 1812 set by Governor Elbridge Gerry noted that one of the districts looked like a salamander), in the 21st century it has "become a much more effective tool". Since 2010, detailed maps and high-speed computing have facilitated gerrymandering by political parties in the redistricting process, in order to gain control of state legislation and congressional representation and potentially to maintain that control over several decades, even against shifting political changes in a state's population. It allows the drawing of districts "with surgical precision". According to Julia Kirschenbaum and Michael Li of the Brennan Center In 2010, Republicans—in an effort to control the drawing of congressional maps—forged a campaign to win majorities in as many state legislatures as possible. It was wildly successful, giving