SCOTUS rules Arizona campaign finance law unconstitutional

[Glidergun]

The finance law in question works like this: if you are a publicly funded candidate in an election, and one of your privately-funded opponents gets a hold of a large source of cash which he starts using in his campaign, be it his own stockpiles or a wealthy corporation, you get an amount of money equal to the amount by which his source of cash exceeds your public funding. In other words, publicly funded candidates have monetary parity with privately-funded candidates. It didn't do anything to prevent that privately funded candidate from blowing a bunch of cash on his campaign, it just removed his ability to massively outspend publicly funded ones.
Sounds like a good idea, right?
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/06/27/29 ... z1QW4JdlCx
Not according to 5/9 of the Supreme Court.

[Dartz]

"Less corruption, more speech. Robust campaigns leading to the election of representatives not beholden to the few, but accountable to the many," Kagan wrote in her dissent. "The people of Arizona might have expected a decent respect for those objectives. Today, they do not get it."

Enough said.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[ECSNorway]

The only way you're going to root out corruption in electoral funding is to go to an entirely-publicly-funded model, and that just isn't going to happen, because once you do that any exercise of free speech along the lines of "I think Candidate X is cool" and "D00d, Candidate Y sucks!" becomes an illicit financial contribution to the campaign.
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Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.