Supreme Court blocks Arizona candidates' matching funds

[bergie321]

Source: The Arizona Republic

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday issued an emergency halt to the matching-funds portion of Arizona's publicly funded Clean Elections program, throwing Arizona's hotly contested gubernatorial Republican primary into chaos.

The decision means $1.4 million less in public funds for Gov. Jan Brewer, state treasurer Dean Martin and Tom Gordon. Because finance reports show that Yavapai County businessman Buz Mills, a Republican, had spent $2.3 million as of May 31, the three Clean Elections candidates were each set to get the maximum $1.4 million in matching funds in addition to their initial $707,447. They will now just get $707,447.

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Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/06/08/20100608supreme-court-blocks-arizona-candidates-matching-funds.html

[GodlessBiker]

1. The Supreme Court ordered that the Clean Elections money go for border security.

:sarcasm:

[Vattel]

2. at first glance, the challenge seems crazy

According to the article, the argument by the Republicans challenging the law is that they spent less to avoid triggering matching funds and so their right to free speech was infringed upon. I'm probably missing something, but that seems crazy. How can my right to free speech be violated by a law that ensures that if I am wealthy and so spend a lot of money expressing my point of view, public funds will ensure that those who have less money also have a comparable opportunity to express their point of view?

[harkadog]

6. Their argument is that they will spend less and thus have less speech

Because they don't want to let their opponents have more speech because they would get more money. I certainly don't agree with that and I doubt any rich candidate has curtailed his spending just so his opponent wouldn't get extra money. But this just shows how hopeless public financing of elections is.

[unblock]

8. the supremos have decided that part of "free speech" consists of the right to shut other people up.

the only ramification to a rich guy spending more in this case is that the public offers similar funding to other candidates, which in turn gives them more freedom of speech.

the court has apparently decided that a rich person's rights are infringed if a poor person can speak more than his poverty permits.


"a rich man once told me, hey life's a funny thing /
a poor man once told me that he can't afford to speak /
now i'm in the middle like a bird without a beak /
'cause there's just two songs in me, and i just wrote the third /
don't know where i got the inspiration or how i wrote the words /
spent my whole life just digging up my music's shallow grave /
for the two songs in me and the third one i just made"

[cascadiance]

3. And Sandra Day O'Connor is RESPONSIBLE for the state's chamber of commerce challenge to this law...

http://azcapitoltimes.com/blog/2010/04/21/house-panel-oks-clean-elections-repeal/

...

The effort to end public campaign financing is backed primarily by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Government for Arizona’s Second Century, the lobbying arm of the O’Connor House Project, a group spearheaded by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Was she REALLY "disgusted" with the Citizen's United ruling, or was that just PR for her? Duplicitous B*tch!

[McCamy Taylor]

4. Because public funding of elections is not in the best interest of the corporate fascist state.

[keopeli]

5. Crappy article doesn't say which SCOTUS judge issued the order. n/t

[harkadog]

7. It looks like Justice Kennedy but it does say it was referred to the court

http://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/060810zr.pdf