Jamelle Bouie says progressives have good reason to worry about an Arizona campaign-finance case coming before the Supreme Court.
The Roberts Court is poised to remake campaign-finance law — again. Progressives angry about the flood of corporate money into this year’s midterm elections already know they can thank the Court for its willingness to gut a century of campaign law with its Citizens United decision. The Court also wasn’t friendly to campaign-finance reform when it struck down substantial portions of Vermont’s public-financing law in 2006. Now, progressives and campaign-reform advocates are wary of what the Court will do in a new case involving Arizona’s public-financing law. As Tara Malloy of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works on campaign finance and elections, says ruefully, “We should be on guard for when the Roberts Court takes on campaign financing.”