Legal News

Wisconsin Judge Upholds Public Financing of Judicial Races

By Nathan Koppel

As we noted earlier in the week, the conservative bloc of the Supreme Court seems skeptical of a new Arizona law that offers government financing to state candidates who agree to accept only limited campaign support from private donors.

The Arizona law also requires the state to kick in extra financing to participating candidates if their opponents spend above a certain set amount.

Conservatives are challenging the Arizona law in the Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds. The law, the claim goes, deters privately-financed candidates from spending as much money as they wish due to a fear that their spending would prompt the state to kick in extra public matching funds to their opponents.

While the Supreme Court seems persuaded by that argument, proponents of public financing are faring better in Wisconsin, where a Madison federal judge yesterday dismissed challenges to that state’s public finance law.

(Here’s an article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and here’s a link to the ruling.)

The Wisconsin campaign law governs state supreme court races and allows participating judicial candidates to get up to $400,000 in public money for primary and general elections and additional public funds if their privately-financed opponents receive contributions above certain threshold. The law was passed due to concerns that judicial fund-raising from private parties in the state had compromised the court’s appearance of neutrality.

Advocacy groups have challenged the Wisconsin law in federal court on First Amendment grounds, claiming it causes candidates to self-censor by deterring their campaign fund-raising and spending , the Journal Sentinel reports.

Wisconsin federal judge William Conley denied the challenge on the grounds that the state has a compelling interest in preserving the state supreme court’s neutrality is compromised by elections.  “Wisconsin’s interest in safeguarding even an appearance of bias is stronger than any of the public financing statutes considered by courts to date,” he wrote.

Still, Conley noted that the Supreme Court’s pending decision in the Arizona case could undermine his own ruling, according to the Journal Sentinel.

Separately, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has proposed dramatically scaling back the public-financing system, the Journal Sentinel reports.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 01, 2011 (boomark / email).