Litigation

NY Times Blasts ?Reckless? AZ Matching Funds Order

By Peter Hardin

A Supreme Court order blocking release of matching funds to publicly funded candidates in Arizona was “reckless” and will leave the state’s model campaign finance system “substantially demolished,” a New York Times editorial warns.

The editorial is headlined, “Keeping Politics Safe for the Rich.” It condemns the temporary order issued Tuesday (see earlier Gavel Grab post) and gives this scathing commentary on the the high court under Chief Justice John Roberts:

“It seems likely that the Roberts court will use this case to continue its destruction of the laws and systems set up in recent decades to reduce the influence of big money in politics. By the time it is finished, millionaires and corporations will have regained an enormous voice in American politics, at the expense of candidates who have to raise money the old-fashioned way and, ultimately, at the expense of voters.”

The editorial concludes by cautioning about unlimited big-bankroll politics:

“If the court pushes on with its chainsaw, cutting down programs that trigger matching funds, it would threaten systems in Connecticut and Maine, and judicial-race financing systems in Wisconsin, North Carolina and elsewhere.

“Candidates with no prospect of matching funds would be reluctant to join a system that limits their spending. Unless the court veers from its determined path, there will be no limit to the power of a big bankbook on politics.”

A Wall Street Journal editorial, however, takes an opposite tack. It is headlined, “Freer Political Speech,” and it says of the Supreme Court order on Arizona matching funds, “More good news for free political speech.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on June 09, 2010 (boomark / email).