{"id":5488,"date":"2010-06-08T07:12:18","date_gmt":"2010-06-08T14:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=5488"},"modified":"2010-06-14T06:46:48","modified_gmt":"2010-06-14T13:46:48","slug":"supreme-court-slaps-down-az-matching-funds-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/supreme-court-slaps-down-az-matching-funds-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Slaps Down AZ Matching Funds Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Institute for Justice)<\/em> \u2014 In a victory for the freedom of political speech, today the U.S. Supreme Court vacated an order of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and reinstated an injunction against Arizona\u2019s unconstitutional \u201cmatching funds\u201d law\u2014part of Arizona\u2019s so-called system of \u201cClean Elections\u201d\u2014in the case of McComish v. Bennett. A federal district court in Arizona struck down \u201cmatching funds\u201d in January as a violation of the First Amendment, but the Ninth Circuit stopped that ruling from taking effect and later reversed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is terrific news for our fight to vindicate free speech by striking down this unconstitutional law,\u201d said IJ senior attorney Bill Maurer, lead counsel for the Institute in this case. \u201cWe will now ask the Court to take up this case on the merits.\u201d <\/p>\n

Arizona\u2019s \u201cClean Elections\u201d Act gives public money to politicians to run for office and squelches the free speech of candidates who choose to forego taxpayer dollars and instead raise their own funds for their campaigns. For every dollar a privately funded candidate spends above a certain amount, the government hands taxpayer dollars over to his opponent to allow him to \u201cmatch\u201d the spending\u2014and thus the speech\u2014of the privately funded candidate. Just as importantly, the Act even matches funds spent by independent groups to support privately funded candidates. The Act thus punishes privately funded candidates and their supporters for spending money during campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Supreme Court\u2019s decision today will allow the 2010 Arizona election to occur without the government placing its thumb on the scale in favor of those politicians who receive government subsidies,\u201d continued Maurer. \u201cThe purpose of this law was to limit individuals\u2019 speech by limiting their spending. But the First Amendment does not permit the government to restrain Americans from robustly exercising the right of free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she struck down the \u201cmatching funds\u201d provisions in January, Judge Roslyn O. Silver of the U.S. District Court of the District of Arizona saw them for what they were: a \u201cburden[]\u201d on \u201cFirst Amendment rights\u201d that \u201cis not supported by a compelling state interest, is not narrowly tailored, and is not the least restrictive alternative.\u201d Shortly thereafter, however, the Ninth Circuit stayed the effect of that decision. Last month, the Ninth Circuit overturned Judge Silver\u2019s holding and rejected her reasoning.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatching funds violate the First Amendment rights of candidates, citizens and independent groups,\u201d said Maurer. \u201cThe government may not give an electoral advantage to one candidate by \u2018leveling\u2019 the speech of his opponents. The point of the Clean Elections Act is to limit spending on speech, and that is exactly what it does.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ninth Circuit\u2019s conclusion\u2014that any burden on traditional candidates is insignificant\u2014is belied by the plaintiffs\u2019 experiences in this case. For example, in 2008, IJ client Rep. Rick Murphy had three taxpayer-funded opponents in the general election, so for every dollar he raised to spend on his own speech his opponents received three additional dollars in taxpayer funds to counter his speech. Matching funds often guarantee that candidates who refuse taxpayer subsidies will be outspent by publicly funded opponents. Indeed, Murphy raised only $21,000 in the general election, but his three opponents received more than $176,000 in public subsidies because of the matching funds provision. The motion to stay the issuance of the funds was brought by IJ and the Goldwater Institute, which also represents privately financed candidates in the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court\u2019s action today demonstrates how badly the Ninth Circuit erred in upholding this unconstitutional system,\u201d said IJ-Arizona staff attorney Paul Avelar. \u201cThe Court\u2019s unusual step today reflects the harm this system does to the free speech rights of privately financed candidates and independent groups that support them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim Keller, executive director of the IJ Arizona Chapter, noted, \u201cFor a decade, this Act has warped Arizona\u2019s politics and produced a system where our elections are more partisan and dirtier than ever. Today, the Supreme Court correctly recognized that allowing Arizona\u2019s punitive system of taxpayer-financed campaigns to continue for yet another election would irreparably harm First Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Institute for Justice defends First Amendment freedoms and challenges burdensome campaign finance laws nationwide. It is joined in this fight to strike down Arizona\u2019s \u201cmatching funds\u201d law by the Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute. IJ recently won a landmark victory for free speech in federal court on behalf of SpeechNow.org, an independent group that opposes or supports candidates on the basis of their stand on free speech. IJ also won recent victories for free speech in Florida when a federal judge struck down the state\u2019s broadest-in-the-nation \u201celectioneering communications\u201d law and in Washington when it stopped an attempt to use the state\u2019s campaign finance laws to regulate talk-radio commentary about a ballot issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Institute for Justice) \u2014 In a victory for the freedom of political speech, today the U.S. Supreme Court vacated an order of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and reinstated an injunction against Arizona\u2019s unconstitutional \u201cmatching funds\u201d law\u2014part of Arizona\u2019s so-called system of \u201cClean Elections\u201d\u2014in the case of McComish v. Bennett. A federal district […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5488"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5513,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488\/revisions\/5513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}