I haven't seen this diaried but this seems important to me. Yesterday the Supreme Court issued an order blocking the payment of matching funds under Arizona's progressive campaign finance laws that were designed to reduce the influence of money in politics. As someone who deals with this issue every day there is no question in my mind that the level to which money greases the wheels of politics in this country is a huge problem. A NY Times editorial today says it better than I can.
In a burst of judicial activism, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upended the gubernatorial race in Arizona, cutting off matching funds to candidates participating in the state’s public campaign finance system. Suddenly, three candidates, including Gov. Jan Brewer, can no longer receive public funds they had counted on to run against a free-spending wealthy opponent.
The court’s reckless order muscling into the race was terse and did not say whether there were any dissents, though it is hard to imagine there were not. An opinion explaining its reasoning will have to wait until the next term, assuming it takes the case, but by that time the state’s general election will be over and its model campaign finance system substantially demolished.
Arizona’s clean elections program was established by the state’s voters in 1998 after a series of scandals provided clear illustrations of money’s corrupting influence. In particular, the program was prompted by the AzScam scandal of 1991, in which many state legislators were recorded accepting contributions and bribes in exchange for approval of gambling legislation.
The system gives qualifying candidates a lump-sum grant for their primary or general election races in exchange for which the candidates agree not to raise large private contributions. If an opposing candidate is not participating in the system and spends more than the lump-sum grant, the participating candidate qualifies for additional matching funds.
It was those matching funds that produced a challenge from well-financed candidates, backed by the Goldwater Institute and other conservative interests. The candidates argued that the matching funds "chilled" their freedom of speech because they were afraid to spend more than the limit that triggered the funds. A lower court agreed with that pretzel logic, but last month a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit disagreed. It said the speech of the plaintiffs had not been chilled. "The essence of this claim is not that they have been silenced," the panel said, "but that the speech of their opponents has been enabled."
Wow, just wow!
First the Court says Corporations have the rights of a person, allows them to spend unlimited dollars to influence elections. But now they say spending money to counter that influence is suppression of free speech?
This Court is giving the term judicial activism a whole new meaning. And the steadily increasing power of money, especially corporate money is the political story of our day.