Last week, the Supreme Court came down with their latest attempt to destroy democracy by carving it up for purchase. The decision was
Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett, a case challenging Arizona's opt-in public financing scheme. The scheme worked like this: Any candidate may agree to public financing, meaning that he receives funding from the state, and is limited to that funding. If, however, his opponent is privately financed and outspends him, the state gives him 94 cents on the dollar in matching funds, up to three times the original amount. Anything in excess of that, and he was out of luck. The Supreme Court struck this down as a violation of the speech rights of the privately funded candidate.
Think about this for a second. Where this provision cannot be said to do anything but
create more speech, the Court struck it down because it suppressed the efficacy of the private spender's speech. Justice Kagan's
dissent doesn't pull punches in pointing out the absurdity:
