Supreme Court to hear challenge to campaign public-funding law

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced Monday it will hear a challenge to Arizona's public funding of state campaigns, setting the stage for a ruling that could doom efforts to limit the impact of private money in elections.

The court's decision next year will be the latest of a series of rulings on campaign-funding law, in which the conservative majority has struck down both state and federal laws while saying that free speech calls for free spending in politics. In January the justices struck down the 63-year-old federal law that barred businesses and unions from funding election ads.

Good-government reformers have held out the hope that taxpayer funding of campaigns could keep candidates focused on the interests of ordinary voters, rather than on the special interests of their big donors. But that option seems increasingly in doubt.

In June, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked Arizona from giving public funds to state candidates, including Gov. Jan Brewer, who had agreed to forgo private fundraising.

Arizona's voters adopted the Clean Elections Act in 1998 after a scandal that featured state legislators caught on video stuffing campaign cash into gym bags. Candidates who opt for the public funding are entitled to extra matching funds if they are being outspent by their privately funded opponents.

But two years ago, the Supreme Court struck down a similar provision in the federal McCain-Feingold Act. The so-called "Millionaire's Amendment" allowed candidates for Congress to accept larger contributions if they faced a wealthy, self-financed opponent. In a 5-4 decision, the high court said this provision was "a drag" on the First Amendment rights of wealthy, free-spending candidates.

That ruling, in turn, fueled a constitutional challenge to Arizona's law. "The matching-funds system brazenly violates the First Amendment rights of candidates to speak without having government put its thumb on the scale of their opponents," said Clint Block, a lawyer for the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix.

The lawyers challenging the Arizona law said Maine and Connecticut also had adopted public-funding laws for state candidates. They cited six other states — Florida, Hawaii, New Mexico, North Carolina, West Virginia and Wisconsin — that offer public funding for some state offices, including for judges who run for election. Some of these laws could be affected by the court's ruling.

"The court should put an end to public-financing schemes like Arizona's that are aimed at suppressing free speech," added Bill Maurer, a lawyer for the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, which filed a separate suit.

The justices said Monday they had voted to hear the pair of challenges to the Arizona law. Arguments will be heard in March, and a decision will be handed down by summer.