On August 29, U.S. District Court Roslyn Silver, a Clinton appointee, voided one element of Arizona’s public funding program. McComish v Brewer, cv-08-1550.

Arizona’s law provides for public funding for candidates who raise enough small contributions. The ruling does not disturb the basic program. But the law also provides for substantial extra public funding for a candidate who has an opponent who is not participating in the public funding program. If the privately-funded opponent raises or spends more than a particular voluntary ceiling, then the publicly-funded candidate’s public funds are increased, to match the spending of the privately-funded candidate. Even that aspect of the law was not overturned in court. But, the law also gives the same extra public funding to a candidate whose privately-funded opponent is the “beneficiary” of independent expenditures.

“Independent expenditures” means that someone who is not associated with a candidate spends money on his or her behalf, without any coordination.

The plaintiffs pointed out that the provision of the law concerning extra subsidies when the opponent is the “beneficiary” of independent expenditures leads to manipulation. Someone can deliberately create poor-quality independent expenditures for a privately-funded candidate, in an attempt to injure that privately-funded candidate. Then, the privately-funded candidate’s publicly-funded opponent gets a windfall in extra public funding, all to “balance” independent expenditures that might be utterly useless, and even harmful, to the candidate they are supposedly helping. The ruling focuses on that scenario. The judge did not stop public funding for the September 2 primary, but another hearing will be held on September 3 to decide if it should be stopped for the general election. Thanks to electionlawblog for this news.