"Hawaii’s public financing pilot project likely to fall along with Arizona’s campaign law"
http://ilind.net/Court watchers seem to agree that the Supreme Court appears poised to strike down the “equalizing payments” provision of Arizona’s campaign finance law as unconstitutional by a narrow 5-4 majority based on comments during yesterday’s oral arguments.
From the SCOTUSblog, cited here yesterday.
Four of the members of the Davis majority (all but Justice Clarence Thomas, who said nothing) left little doubt Monday that they probably accept the challengers’ basic logical premise. As their attorney, Maurer, put it early in his argument: “What this case is about is whether the government can turn my act of speaking into the vehicle by which my political opponents benefit with direct government subsidies.”
From a story by Marcia Coyle in the National Law Journal, “Another campaign finance law appears ready to fall,” (free registration required).
After the arguments, Douglas Kendall, head of the Constitutional Accountability Center which supports the state law, said in a statement, “Today, the same bloc of five justices who struck down big parts of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law last year in Citizens United, appeared inclined to similarly gut an effort by Arizona to expand speech while combating the worst public corruption scandal in the state’s history. Today’s case is a sequel to Buckley, but they treated it as a re-run of Citizens United.”
Systems similar to Arizona’s public financing regime are in effect in 29 states and cities.
From the Constitutional Law Prof Blog:
If the questions of the Justices are predictive, a divided Court seems likely to find Arizona’s matching funds provision unconstitutional.
So, DU, what's the word? Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?
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