Litigation

Suit Attacks WI Public Financing Law

By Peter Hardin

A landmark law recently passed by the Wisconsin legislature (photo of state capitol at left) for public financing of state Supreme Court candidates  is facing a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality.

Wisconsin Right to Life filed the lawsuit, contending that the new law violates free speech rights guaranteed under the First Amendment, according to an Associated Press article. The lawyer representing the group, James Bopp Jr. of Terre Haute, Ind., is well known for bringing lawsuits challenging campaign finance laws around the country on behalf of conservative interests.

Under the law, candidates who agree to spending limits would get $100,000 in public financing for a primary and $300,000 for a general election campaign. The lawsuit specifically challenges what is called the law’s  “rescue funds” provision, whereby a qualifying candidate is furnished a matching sum, up to $900,000 in the general election, if a non-participating candidate or a third party group outspends him by a certain level.

“Third parties are chilled from speaking in support of a candidate because doing so will likely result in providing additional funds to that candidate’s opponent,” Bopp said in a statement, quoted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The Milwaukee newspaper quoted Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, as responding, “This isn’t about the First Amendment. This (lawsuit) is about trying to drown out the voices of candidates and citizens.”

Campaign finance laws have faced mounting legal challenges across the nation, and challenges to public financing schemes have led to mixed outcomes in the courts.

North Carolina passed landmark legislation in 2002 to become the first state offering voluntary public financing for appellate judicial campaigns, and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of that system–similar to Wisconsin’s–in 2008.

When opponents of the North Carolina law filed a petition for an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, they were represented by Bopp. On Nov. 3, 2008, the high court declined to hear the challenge to North Carolina?s public financing system. You can learn more about that case, Duke v. Leake, from a backgrounder page at the Brennan Center for Justice.

State Sen. Pat Kreitlow, one of the Wisconsin law’s authors, indicated little surprise over the new lawsuit’s filing. “Special interest groups have spent millions of dollars to purchase the influence they have over our Supreme Court elections, so another few thousand in legal bills is a small price to pay to try to keep it,” he said.

The lawsuit drew attention in the national media; the Christian Science Monitor headlined its article, “Wisconsin lawsuit tests a pioneering campaign finance law.”

The Wisconsin law was written  to curb the influence of special-interest spending in state Supreme Court elections by supporting qualifying candidates with taxpayer funding. You can read more about it from other Gavel Grab posts or a Justice at Stake press release, and you can learn about public financing from Justice at Stake?s Web page on the topic. In addition, you can read the Wisconsin Right to Life Complaint here, and a column critical of the law and written by Bradley A. Smith, chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, from the Journal Sentinel here.

Full post as published by The Gavel on December 21, 2009 (boomark / email).