From The Nation
The US Supreme Court's conservative majority continued its project of bartering off American democracy to the highest bidder
with a decision Monday that will make it dramatically harder to counter
free-spending attack campaigns funded by billionaire donors and
corporate spin machines.
With a 5-4 vote, the Court has struck down a matching-funds mechanism in Arizona's Clean
Elections Law that allowed candidates who accepted public funding to
match the spending of privately funded candidates and independent groups
that might attack them. Under the Arizona law -- which has long been
considered a national model for using public funds to pay for
campaigns -- candidates who accept public funding are limited in what they
can spend.
Candidates who refuse public funding are not so constrained; and nor
are independent groups that support privately funded candidates; indeed,
in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's sweeping Citizens United v. FEC ruling
of 2010, which cleared the way for corporations to spend as much as
they like to influence election, restrictions to the flow of private
money into politics have been all but eliminated.
Faced with the threat of being overwhelmed by private money, no
candidate would go the "Clean Elections" route, unless some mechanism
was put in place to counter attack ads by privately funded opponents and
groups associated with those opponents. The Arizona Clean Elections law
provided that mechanism under a formula requiring that for every dollar
a privately funded candidate (or group supporting that candidate) spent
above established spending limits, a dollar in additional public
funding would go to the "Clean Elections" candidate.
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The genius of the Arizona law was two-fold. The guarantee of matching
funds assured that candidates who accepted "Clean Elections" money
would be able to compete on a level playing field and, in so doing, this
discouraged privately funded candidates and independent groups backing
them from trying to buy elections with overwhelming spending.
On Monday, however, the Supreme Court struck down the "matching
funds" provision of Arizona's "Clean Elections" Act, declaring it to be
an unconstitutional restriction on the free-speech rights of privately
funded candidates and corporate-funded "independent" groups to shout
down publicly funded candidates.
In combination with the Citizens United ruling, Monday's ruling in the case of McComish v. Bennett
creates a circumstance where corporations and their political allies
will enjoy virtually unlimited political advantages over candidates who
choose to run campaigns that rely on small individual donations or
public financing.
The court has removed one of the few remaining tools for maintaining a
level playing field in politics, on which candidates of differing views
might have won or lost elections based on their skills and ideas -- as
opposed to their relative financial advantages.
In so doing, the Court has tipped the balance even further toward
wealthy and corporation-allied candidates in a move that says the only
speech right now protected in our politics is the right of those with
the deepest pockets to shout down everyone else.
"This decision, based on an upside-down interpretation of the First
Amendment, takes away the right of Arizonans not only to ensure a
modicum of integrity and fairness in their elections but to promote more
political speech. The Court has thus ensured that the wealthiest can
continue to pay for outsized political influence and maintain their
speech advantages," says Marge Baker of People for the American Way.
"The Roberts Court has once again twisted the Constitution to benefit
the wealthy and powerful while leaving ordinary Americans with a
diminished voice," added Baker. "Like in Citizens United v. FEC,
which prohibited legislatures from limiting corporate spending to
influence elections, the Court's majority has strayed from the text and
history of the Constitution in order to prevent citizens from
maintaining control over our democracy. The Roberts Court would do well
to remember that the Constitution was written to protect democracy for
all people, not just the rich and powerful. Today it has ruled not only
that the wealthy have a right to spend more but that they have a right
that everyone else spend less."
Some reformers saw a measure of hope in the fact that the Court affirmed that public financing of campaigns in constitutional.
For instance, Bert Brandenburg, executive director of Justice at Stake
(the campaign to clean up state court elections) suggested that it
might still be possible to write public financing laws that worked in
some circumstances -- particularly judicial contests.
"Today's ruling is disappointing, but not fatal for America's courts.
State judicial elections are drowning in special-interest spending,"
argued Brandenberg. "Properly crafted public financing laws are more
critical than ever, so that judges do not have to dial for dollars from
major donors who may appear before them in court."
Ultimately, however, this latest ruling suggests that the Roberts
Court is so determined to serve the interests of its corporate masters
that it will not stop re-imagining the Constitution until it serves only
an elite.
If that is the case, then only an amendment to the document will
renew an honest interpretation of the free speech protections outlined by
the founders.
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John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.
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