The U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd circuit, will soon be holding oral arguments in Green Party of Connecticut v Garfield, the case over Connecticut’s public funding law. The Green Party had won the case in U.S. District Court and the state is appealing.

On December 29, three Arizona elected officials filed this amicus brief on the side of the Green Party. It is 24 pages. The amicus attacks the “trigger provision” in the Connecticut law. The Connecticut law says that if a candidate who doesn’t qualify for public funding still manages to raise private funds that exceed the expenditure limit for an opponent who is receiving public funds, that the publicly-financed candidate then gets substantial additional public funding. The three Arizona elected officials are Arizona State Treasurer Dean Martin, State Senator Robert Burns, and State House member Rick Murphy. They are also plaintiffs in an Arizona lawsuit against the Arizona public funding’s “trigger provision.”