Are “Clean Election” Schemes Headed to the Supreme Court?
In a recent piece in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, I predicted the “lonely death” of public campaign financing. The point was that public financing schemes that provided what are often called “rescue funds,” i.e., additional public money for candidates who face an opponent (or independent opposition) that has spent more than some triggering amount. So, for example, if I am a publicly financed candidate who is running against an internet billionaire or a well financed independent campaign against me (undoubtedly by some group that is for “the children”), I can get additional public money to match the expenditures against me.
My argument was that these asymetrical financing systems are probably unconstitutional and that, as a result, any public financing system will be dwarfed by self financed candidates, independent expenditures or, increasingly, opposition campaigns whose use of the Internet and bundling is likely to dwarf any politically feasible amount of public financing.