The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the matching funds provision of Arizona’s public campaign financing law on June 27, ruling 5-4 that the provision “substantially burdens the speech of privately financed candidates” and independent groups without serving a compelling state interest. Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina and Wisconsin had similar “trigger funds” in their public financing laws, and The Washington Post reported that those laws were now open to challenge.

Under Arizona’s Citizens Clean Elections Act, a candidate who accepted public funding received roughly one dollar for every dollar that a privately financed opponent or independent groups spent above the initial grant, up to twice the grant. Arizona passed the law in 1998 following corruption scandals.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said the court did not “call into question the wisdom of public financing” as a way to fund campaigns. Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the four dissenting justices that “no fundamental principle of our Constitution backs the court’s ruling.”

Justice at Stake, a nonpartisan campaign of more than 50 organizations, had urged the court to uphold the provision. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed Feb. 22 and joined by 14 former state judges, the group warned that striking down the provision “may lead to the collapse of public financing systems for judicial elections” in other states.

North Carolina created the oldest full public financing system for judicial elections in 2002 and first used it in 2004, according to the brief. Appellate candidates there who faced heavy spending against them could receive “rescue funds” to remain competitive. Wisconsin’s Impartial Justice Act gave Supreme Court candidates who accepted public funds matching money when privately financed opponents outspent them, along with additional money to answer independent spending, the brief said.

Gavel Grab first reported this story on June 27, 2011, when the site was a project of Justice at Stake. This account of the same events was written from the public record.

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