It’s been a dispiriting few weeks for anyone advocating limits on private money in political campaigns. The bombshell that dropped Wednesday, of course, was the 5-4 decision from the highest court in the land against limiting the number of federal candidates any individual can support with campaign contributions in a two-year election cycle.

Those advocates must persist in efforts, locally and nationally, to counter the erosion of campaign finance regulation. Strategies include increasing the disclosure of which donors give to which campaigns: Voters should be clear on who is driving the political agenda, behind the scenes.

Second, states such as Hawaii must press on with attempts to create citizen-funded campaign systems, ensuring an alternate path for political engagement by people other than the ones backed by big bankrolls.

Some analysts say the blow from the U.S. Supreme Court was somewhat blunted because the decision left in place restrictions on the amounts that donors can give to each candidate: Only the cap on aggregate contributions was removed.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, said it’s the individual limits, not the aggregate, that are intended to prevent quid-pro-quo corruption of politicians by their well-heeled supporters. But this does not sufficiently address the outsized influence that an individual donor can have on entire voting blocs in Congress, so it can be corrupting, too.

Beyond that, the ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission is also seen as just one more giant step in a long process of dismantling campaign finance reforms on the federal books for more than 40 years. Over the long haul, the trend lines don’t even look promising for the survival of per-candidate limits.

The McCutcheon decision only addresses campaigns for federal office, but it may not play out in favor of local campaign finance restrictions, either. Across the country, states see the case as a prompt to rethink their own aggregate limits.

Hawaii’s laws set an aggregate limit of $25,000 for contributions to a party, whether or not the gift is earmarked for candidates.

And prospects for Hawaii’s most recent effort at publicly funded elections dimmed two weeks ago when House Bill 2533 stalled in the state Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee. That bill sought the creation of a fund that supports candidates for state House seats who garner a base amount of small donations from voters in the district they seek to represent.

This measure offered the preferred, realistic approach, including an appropriation to restore the state public campaign fund. But last session’s version, House Bill 1481, remains alive in a conference committee. That committee should be reconstituted to resurrect a vehicle for the citizen-funded campaign system.

On the national level, there has been a drive to amend the U.S. Constitution, ever since the court’s 2010 landmark campaign-finance decision, Citizens United v. FEC. One example is a bill introduced last June by U.S. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) that would specifically empower Congress and local governments to regulate campaign contributions.

In the U.S. House, Udall’s colleague from New Mexico, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, introduced another bill that would tighten disclosure requirements for anyone underwriting political activity. Many donors are giving to social welfare entities — also known as 501(c)4 organizations — that are now required to stick to their social-welfare mission only "primarily." They prefer these groups because they don’t require names of donors to be disclosed.

Grisham’s bill would completely bar political activity by 501(c)4 groups, compelling donors to give to political action committees that do disclose names.

Such measures deserve support from members of Congress, including from Hawaii’s delegation. But neither has moved an inch in its respective chamber — understandable in the House, where Grisham is in the minority, but that’s also so for Udall’s bill in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Regardless of the party in charge, changing the political status quo is a heavy lift, especially any effort to change the Constitution. That’s why a movement for greater fairness in campaign finance needs to start at the local levels, employing the equalizing force of the Internet to build consensus.

Hawaii and other local governments must not simply give in to the growing dominance of money in politics. It is dismaying, but democracy deserves an aggressive defense.