The Supreme Court heard arguments in McComish v. Bennett today, which the SCOTUSBlog describes as a case determining “whether the First Amendment prohibits a state from giving additional money to a candidate who accepts state funding for her campaign whenever: (a) an independent group spends more than a certain amount campaigning against the candidate; or (b) the candidate’s opponent refuses public funding and spends more than a certain amount on the campaign.”
The petitioner in this case represents the Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s (AZFEC) Freedom Club PAC, a free-market non-profit in Arizona that is challenging that state’s “matching funds” law. According to the law, if a group like AZFEC donates to a candidate who has declined public funding and that candidate’s total funds raised exceeds a set limit, the opponents of that candidate can receive the difference from public funds.
