Supreme Court Overturns Vermont Campaign Finance Law

* Stuart Comstock-Gay, Executive Director of the National Voting Rights Institute.

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SPLINTERED SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS VERMONT'S CAMPAIGN SPENDING, CONTRIBUTION LIMITS

NARROW MAJORITY LIMITS STATES' AUTHORITY TO FIGHT CORRUPTING INFLUENCE OF MONEY ON ELECTIONS


WASHINGTON, DC: - The U.S. Supreme Court today announced its decision in Randall v. Sorrell, a case addressing the constitutionality of Vermont's comprehensive campaign finance law, passed in 1997.

Stuart Comstock-Gay, Executive Director of the National Voting Rights Institute, which defended the law alongside the state of Vermont, had this statement on the decision.

Even while we watch elected officials being marched off to jail for corrupt activities, today's decision gives money an even larger role in elections. The decision marks a lost opportunity to end the arms race for campaign cash and make elections a contest of ideas rather than dollars, but the struggle for reform will continue. This will intensify support for voluntary public financing systems, and in the end, a constitutional amendment to allow mandatory spending limits may be necessary. The Supreme Court upheld the poll tax twice before it was finally struck down, and today's decision striking down spending limits likewise will not stand the test of time.

In striking down Vermont's limits on campaign expenditures, a narrow majority declined to overrule the Court's 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, which struck down limits on congressional campaign spending. Three justices (Justices Souter, Ginsburg and Stevens) would have allowed the trial court to reconsider the constitutionality of spending limits, with Justice Stevens declaring outright that Buckley's holding on spending limits should be overruled. A fourth (Justice Alito) declined to address the issue of whether Buckley should be overruled on that point, saying it had not been properly presented. Justice Breyer, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, ruled that principles of stare decisis required them to strike down Vermont's spending limits. Justice Kennedy concurred only in the result reached by the Breyer plurality opinion, while Justices Thomas and Scalia reiterated their view that spending limits are unconstitutional.

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http://www.nvri.org/updates/e-updates/update_supreme_court_mail_june_2006.html