Oral arguments were presented today in the US Supreme Court on whether some aspects of the Arizona campaign finance law are constitutional. See this link for the Question Presented to The Court. The gist of the argument is about matching funds, which are a grant presented to the participating candidate if the non-participating candidate spends more than a set amount.
The plaintiffs are arguing, in part, that providing this kind of matching grant prohibits free speech! What they say is that if a non-participating candidate knows that spending money to make his points will cause his opponent to get more money, he would be reluctant to speak!! Can you believe this? What these people seem to want is the ability to say whatever they want and have nobody reply. They don’t just want to speak; they want to shout at us and have us not reply.
I will watch this with interest. Who knows, perhaps some sanity will rule. We can always hope.