The U.S. Supreme Court has continued its project of creating coin-operated elections in America, with its decision in the Arizona case of McComish v. Bennett. The Supreme Court struck down a provision of the Arizona law that would increase state candidate financing when an opponent of a clean money candidate financially increased his or her stake in dirty money. Here's how the stricken provision was described in the Court's syllabus:

They are also granted additional matching funds if a privately financed candi- date’s expenditures, combined with the expenditures of independent groups made in support of the privately financed candidate or in op- position to a publicly financed candidate, exceed the publicly financed candidate’s initial state allotment. Once matching funds are trig- gered, a publicly financed candidate receives roughly one dollar for every dollar raised or spent by the privately financed candidate— including any money of his own that a privately financed candidate spends on his campaign—and for every dollar spent by independent groups that support the privately financed candidate.

Arizona's law was passed in 1998 after a wave of corruption scandals. The idea was to encourage candidates to forgo the scramble for money, with all its inherent invitations to corruption -- to spend more time speaking to the electorate, and less time speaking to potential funders. In that sense, its goal was very much to increase genuine political speech. But to the Roberts court, money as speech takes precedence over speech as speech.

Imagine two States, each plagued by a corrupt political system. In both States, candidates for public office accept large campaign contributions in exchange for the promise that, after assuming office, they will rank the donors’ interests ahead of all others. As a result of these bargains, politicians ignore the public interest, sound public policy languishes, and the citizens lose confidence in their government. Recognizing the cancerous effect of this corruption, voters of the first State, acting through referendum, enact several campaign finance measures previously approved by this Court. They cap campaign contributions; require disclosure of substantial donations; and create an optional public financing program that gives candidates a fixed public subsidy if they refrain from private fundraising. But these measures do not work. Individuals who “bundle” campaign contributions become indispensable to candidates in need of money. Simple disclosure fails to prevent shady dealing. And candidates choose not to participate in the public financing system because the sums provided do not make them competitive with their privately financed opponents. So the State remains afflicted with corruption. Voters of the second State, having witnessed this failure, take an ever-so-slightly different tack to cleaning up their political system. They too enact contribution limits and disclosure requirements. But they believe that the greatest hope of eliminating corruption lies in creating an effective public financing program, which will break candidates’ dependence on large donors and bundlers. [More ...]