Victory For Free Elections

On the final day of its 2010-11 term, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down another victory for free and fair elections. In Arizona Free Enterprise v. Bennett, the court rejected Arizona's controversial system of publicly financing political campaigns because it unfairly offered "a state-provided monetary subsidy" to certain candidates.

Arizona's public financing system, heralded by campaign finance reformers as a model for the nation, provided publicly financed candidates with an initial lump sum, and then supplemental matching funds for every dollar spent by an independent expenditure or privately financed opponent.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that such a system "plainly forces the privately financed candidate to 'shoulder a special and potentially significant burden' when choosing to exercise his First Amendment right to spend funds on behalf of his candidacy."

On principle, we shudder anytime government tries to solve a problem by subsidizing it. That's especially frightening in the area of political campaigns, where government subsidies favor some political opinions and can determine the outcome of an election.

There are also practical obstacles with a publicly financed system, namely, that it can be easily manipulated by savvy political consultants. Campaigns are successful because of effective targeting and tailoring a message to each political demographic.

Under a publicly financed system, nothing can stop a union from triggering additional funds for their chosen candidate by launching a "phony" independent expenditure with "bad" targeting. After all, taxpayers are footing the bill so there's no risk to such creative campaigning.

Following last term's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which regarded the funding and timing of "electioneering communications," the high court is now two-for-two in protecting the public's right to political speech.

Yet, after Freedom Communications spoke with Bradley Smith, the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, we see more cause for caution than jubilation. Smith, the country's foremost expert on political speech, is troubled by the 5-4 nature of the court's campaign finance decisions.

"Think about last year's decision in Citizens United: Four justices thought it was perfectly OK for the government to censor the distribution or showing of a political movie," he warned.

We don't expect this decision to stop or even slow down advocates of campaign finance reform because, in Smith's words, "they see free speech as a threat to democracy, rather than as essential to a democracy." He expects the campaign-finance-reform movement to shift away from Arizona's model in favor of New York City's approach, which matches every small contribution with $6 in taxpayer-funded subsidies.

As Smith puts it, "The purpose of an election campaign is to hold a referendum on the incumbent government, and thus it is bad practice to make candidates reliant on that government."

REPRINTED FROM THE NORTHWEST FLORIDA DAILY NEWS.

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