Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Noted constitutional law professor Richard Hazen (host of Election Law Blog) has written an essay for Slate that probes the rationale behind US Supreme Court rulings on cases involving political spending and contributions. The Court should protect the First Amendment “free speech” rights of individuals to support candidates, but it also must protect a free and fair election system from corruption or the appearance of being thoroughly rigged. In truth, the majority of Supremes care about neither as much as they worry about protecting the privilege of private wealth to buy what it wants. That’s a view we’ve expressed more than once on this site, and it’s somewhat startling to see Hazen, the independent expert, agree: “If you are looking for a common thread between the ‘more speech is better’ theory underlying Citizens United and an expected ‘more speech is unfair’ ruling for the challengers in McComish [Arizona matching funds case], it is this: Five conservatives justices on the Supreme Court appear to have no problem with the wealthy using their resources to win elections — even if doing so raises the danger of increased corruption of the political system.”