The Brennan Center for Justice, which was once a friend of voting rights for minor party and independent voters, did most of the legal work of defending the discriminatory Connecticut public funding law in court. On August 28, the Brennan Center issued an angry press release about yesterday’s decision. It says, “This decision by a single judge completely disregards binding constitutional precedent regarding public financing programs – which have been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court and other federal courts.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has only had one case involving public funding, Buckley v Valeo. The decision, released in 1976, upheld federal law that gives political parties general election funding for the presidential campaigns if that party polled at least 5% of the vote in the last presidential election. It also gives general election public funding to new parties that surpass 5%, but immediately after the election is over (so, parties that expect to poll 5% for President are usually able to borrow money on hopes of meeting the goal; John Anderson used this strategy in 1980).
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the differential in treatment by noting that the general election public funding was only upholding the status quo, because no minor party or independent presidential candidate had won the presidency since before the Civil War, and only once since the Civil War had such a candidate even placed second.
By contrast, the Connecticut law affects candidates for state office. Over 180 non-Republican, non-Democratic nominees for state office (in the 50 states) have been elected in the last 32 years. Connecticut elected an independent Governor in 1990 and an independent U.S. Senator in 2006. Green Party and Working Families Party nominees (who were not also major party nominees) have been elected recently to partisan city office in Connecticut. All of the New England states except Connecticut have minor party or independent state legislators.
The Brennan Center would apparently have people believe that Buckley v Valeo was intended to make it possible for governments to discriminate against minor party and independent candidates, even in elections in which those candidates sometimes do win. The press release also ignores the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Cook v Gralike that the Constitution forbids the government from discriminating for or against any candidates for Congress. The press release also ignores the fact that Arizona and Maine public funding programs do not discriminate, and that the bills for public funding of Congressional candidates, S752 and HR 1826, do not discriminate. Nor does the Brennan Center mention the Helsinki Accords, in which the United States pledged not to discriminate for or against any parties or candidates. If Justice William Brennan were alive today, he would be disappointed in the Brennan Center.
Bravo, Judge Underhill!
Bravo, Richard Winger, who provided excellent documentation and went to NYC for a deposition on behalf of the plaintiffs.
Bravo, ACLU, for your work on behalf of plaintiffs.
Brennan Center: Shame on you! You were in the forefront, working to prevent the disenfranchisment of those who wanted to vote for Ralph Nader. Why were you
so dead wrong THIS time??
Dave Gillespie
Since federal judges and Supreme Court judges at the present time come from political parties, do not expect any of them to rule in favor of independent voters. What independents need to do at the present time is to start registering as candidates with whatever un-Constitutional election laws exist and use candidacy for office as a means of registering voters. Independent voters outnumber Democrats for the first time since 1800. Independent candidates for office would speed the process of registering independent voters.
We need to define what independent voters are. Independent voters are United States citizens registered to vote. When the United States began, all voters were independent voters. Political parties are self-created societies. They are not the government of the United States. George Washington said that parties would assume “artificial authority”. That is what they have done and what they continue to do.
The best way to oppose parties right now is to register as independent candidates for office and start registering as many voters as possible.
And it Der Ahnold’s California, and even cross over electoral official Democratic Party hack Debi Bowen [Secretary of State] ………
[Donald Raymond Lake]
In 1974 Congress made a great law limiting how much the political campaigns in America’s federal election races could spend in them and President Ford signed it. But then the Supreme Court used its questionable power of judicial review to rule those limits unconstitutional. Since then America’s campaign finance reform groups have been capitulating to that ruling by promoting voluntary public financing of political campaigns. The authors of “Rewrite Sacramento’s Pay-to-Play Rules” don’t realize: (1) giving campaigns government funding is too costly and gives the campaigns of questionable candidates funding; (2) governments that fund campaigns compensate for those two problems by giving non-major party campaigns an unfairly-low share of that funding; and, (3) the publicly-financed candidates elected to America’s political offices, ran for such low-level offices, or were so liked by the monied interests, that the monied interests didn’t bother to bankroll other candidates into those offices in campaigns that refused their government funding.
Brennen Center continues its refusal to support using the NYS constitution to restore state-citizen rights to a non-gerrymander election in NYS.
Do LEFTWING legal groups ONLY support LEFTWING *reforms* ???
Same for RIGHTWING groups. Duh.
Gee — what is the *no law* — *abridging* in the 1st Amdt ??? — taking note of the MANY TYRANT attempts by the King George III regime to enslave the American colonies in 1761-1783 – in part by speech – press – assemble – petition restrictions / prohibitions.
Too difficult for the armies of party hacks to understand ???
UNLIMITED spending for speech – press – assemble – petition stuff — perhaps even to help *stimulate* the economy.
The control freaks can go directly to political HELL — do NOT pass GO.
The time for dealing with the armies of campaign finance control freak brain dead MORONS is long past.