Judicial activism right

The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative five have again come up with a creative reason for blocking a law intended to mitigate the influence of money in elections.

This time the justices, in yet another 5-4 ruling, concluded that a provision of the Arizona public campaign finance law that provides extra funding to candidates facing deep-pocketed opponents violates free speech.

In writing the dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan did a good job of exposing that twisted logic. She noted the intent of the extra funding is to enable a vigorous debate on the issues. It sought to ensure that the arguments of an underfunded contender were not drowned out by the cacophony of advertising a well-financed or independently wealthy candidate can purchase.

"Except in a world gone topsy-turvy, additional campaign speech and electoral competition is not a First Amendment issue," wrote Justice Kagan.

Topsy-turvy is too innocent a phrase to characterize the damage the conservative five have done to campaign-finance laws. Their eagerness to slant the electoral field in favor of the rich and powerful is stunning. In "Citizens United" the same five struck down limits on corporate political spending in elections. In "Davis" they blocked the ability of candidates facing multi-millionaire opponents from raising more money.

While often criticizing judicial activism in speeches and papers, these justices have no problem practicing their own activism when it comes to substituting their beliefs for the campaign-finance laws passed by legislatures.

It is small wonder the majority allowed the public financing of campaigns to continue at all. "We do not today call into question the wisdom of public financing as a means of funding political candidacy," wrote Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. In other words, watch out for tomorrow.

As in Arizona, the Connecticut law allowed publicly financed candidates to receive additional grants when facing well-funded opponents. In the last primary election for governor the eventual winner, Democrat Dannel P. Malloy, and Republican Michael C. Fedele both faced wealthy, self-funded opponents and so received $2.5 million in grants through the Citizens' Election Program.

The Supreme Court majority concluded that a well-heeled candidate would be reluctant to spend more money knowing it would trigger larger government grants for the opponent, thus infringing the speech of the richer candidate. That's quite a reach.

Because of legal challenges, Connecticut lawmakers have ended matching funds, replacing them with larger initial grants. The prior system worked fine, but because of this awful decision it will not return.