In yesterday's narrow 5-4 ruling, a majority of the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled yet again in favor of rich donors over everyone else. This opinion, in particular, enters the annals of the truly bizarre. The Court deemed unconstitutional Arizona's "Clean Elections Act": not because it contained limits on campaign donations though. No, Arizona's law attempted merely to balance the scales, and gave financial support to publicly financed candidates to match donations received by well-healed and well-financed opponents. With this decision, now efforts to provide public support for candidates to serve as a counterweight to wealthy special interests offend the First Amendment rights of those wealthy interests.
It's official. It is the end of major combat operations in the Class War, and the wealthy have won, hands down.
In 2010, the Supreme Court decided another critical campaign finance case. In Citizens United v. FEC, the Court found that corporations had free speech rights, and attempts to limit their ability to support independent efforts on behalf of candidates for federal office were deemed unconstitutional. But yesterday's decision goes even farther. In Arizona's Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, the Court found that the provision of certain public funds to candidates itself runs afoul of the First Amendment too.
But whose rights does it offend exactly? Believe it or not, the Court found that such matching grants violate the rights of the donors to the opponents of publicly financed candidates. That's right, the grant of public funds to certain candidates, to offset the corrosive influence of money in our electoral system, is now considered a violation of the rights of those who stand in the best position to corrupt that system: unfettered wealthy donors. A more tortured reading of the First Amendment would be difficult to find.
One central feature of the Arizona law that the majority of the Court found unconstitutional was its matching funds portion. Under the law, a publicly funded candidate who agreed to spending limits was given additional funds when his or her opponent received outsized financing from outside groups, or was heavily self-financed. This dollar-for-dollar match to the money coming in from such sources both ensured a level playing field and also might have discouraged donors from making contributions to the candidate of their choice, knowing their candidate's opponent would receive public matching funds for every dollar he or she contributed.
According to the majority, this matching system offended the rights of the wealthy donors: what advantage would they have if their donations were watered down by matching funds going to the opponent? What's the point of an advantage if you can't exploit it? Apparently, according to a majority of the Supreme Court, that advantage comes with constitutional protections of the highest order.
What's left after Citizens' United and the Arizona decision? In order to rid our political system of the corrupting influence of money, and to limit the ability of those with the money from taking unfair advantage of such a system, the Supreme Court leaves the public no option but to push for a constitutional amendment that would, first, curtail the First Amendment rights of corporations to engage in unfettered, independent support of particular candidates, a right presently protected by Citizens United. Second, such an amendment would respond to this recent decision and free all levels of government to run fair and publicly financed elections if the people demand them, which is all the Arizona law did.
Income inequality in the United States has reached levels not seen since before the Great Depression. This inequality has given the wealthy an unfair advantage when it comes to their ability to finance our elected officials' campaigns, giving those candidates that will protect the interests of such donors a healthy leg up. The Supreme Court has only strengthened the ability of some to have outsized influence over such willing candidates. And the Court leaves the public with little choice but to press for a constitutional amendment that will protect everyone's rights, and ensure that the wealthiest are not able to silence everyone else.
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A Supreme Court win for political speech and political money
Constitutional Myth #5: Corporations Have the Same Free-Speech Rights as ...
1) It should by clear this did burden privately funded candidates. The matching funds triggered a disparate response i.e. the public funded candidate got money but the privately funded candidate didn't get any nor could he retroactively join public financing based on the new higher limits. To clearly see how this was burdensome suppose hypothetically the matching funds were uncapped and provided $1000 to the public candidate for every additional $1 the private candidate spends. Most likely the private candidate would not spend above the limit and would then decline private financing altogether. In this case the matching funds went to ALL of the public funded candidates providing for something more than a one to one response in multi-candidate races. Mr. Brescia indirectly acknowledges this scheme is burdensome by stating that it might discourage donors from making contributions. Mr. Brescia might like that outcome but discouraging donors from donating is unconstitutional
2) Given that its burdensome the law would need to pass strict scrutiny- which its doesn't. Leveling the playing field has never been declared to be a compelling legal interest. Preventing corruption has, but given that this law applied to totally privately funded candidates and to independent groups it can't be considered narrowly tailored or even related to furthering this goal.
The Declaration of Independence used the phrase "Absolved from all Allegiance" to indicate the founders' realization that they could no longer accept the rulings of the Crown and declare that "...when a long train of abuses and usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..."
Are we there yet? No violent revolution is required to simply refuse to observe the rulings of the employees of despots.
Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, NOT a newspaper!
The challenge was brought by 1) rich candidates; and 2) rich funders of candidates.
The Court holds that the state's decision to "equal up" candidates to private levels of spending violated the OTHER CANDIDATEs' and OTHER FUNDERs' rights (maybe the caps will help you see the relevant point), not the rights of those who voluntarily paid into the scheme.
Next time you want to comment, maybe you want to read a little bit first (and perhaps something other than Atlas Shrugged).