Arizona high court upholds campaign-funding source
By The Associated Press
10.14.02
PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court late last week unanimously upheld the state's use of surcharges to help fund election campaigns, ruling they do not violate free-speech rights.
The Supreme Court's 5-0 ruling on a legislator's challenge to the surcharges removed a legal cloud over continued public funding for candidates in this year's election, though a lawyer for the challenger says the case will probably be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Oct. 11 ruling overturned a decision by the state Court of Appeals which held that the surcharges were unconstitutional.
While participating candidates already have received their basic allotments of Clean Elections money for the Nov. 5 general election, the case had the potential to affect extra funds provided to some candidates to match private expenditures against them or for privately funded opponents.
The 10% surcharges on criminal and traffic fines provide approximately 60% of the system's funding. Other funding sources for Clean Elections include contributions from taxpayers and $5 contributions which candidates solicit from voters to qualify for public funding.
Rep. Steve May, a Paradise Valley Republican who contested a surcharge on a parking citation, argued the surcharges infringe on payers' constitutional free-speech rights.
The trial court ruled the surcharges were constitutional, but the midlevel Court of Appeals overruled that finding. The Supreme Court, however, sided with the trial judge and overturned the Court of Appeals ruling.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 Buckley v. Valeo upheld use of public money for campaign financing, the state high court said in its opinion. Also, the Arizona system does not violate other U.S. Supreme Court rulings on mandatory contributions because the system does not promote any particular message, the justices said.
The ruling noted that state taxes "pay the salaries of state legislators, some of whom an individual taxpayer might support and others whom the taxpayer might not support."
"Yet no one would suggest that such payments violate the First Amendment," Justice Rebecca White Berch wrote for the court.
Also, U.S. Supreme Court rulings against various mandatory fees imposed on groups to promote political speech do not apply to the Arizona system because surcharge payers have not joined for a common purpose, the high court said. "At best, the group consists of tens of thousands of otherwise unrelated individuals who, at one time or another, paid a civil or criminal fine," Berch wrote.
The Clean Elections system was authorized by Arizona voters in 1998 and first used to fund candidates in 2000 for legislative and Corporation Commission seats.
This year, however, candidates for virtually every state office are running with Clean Elections funding, including governor, secretary of state, attorney general and superintendent of public instruction.
In the governor's race alone, seven of 10 candidates — most of whom were eliminated in the Sept. 10 primary election — received Clean Elections funding.
The Citizens Clean Election Commission has distributed approximately $7 million to candidates so far this year.
The Court of Appeals issued its ruling June 17, but orders by that court and the Supreme Court permitted candidates to receive money pending the outcome of May's challenge.
Lawyers for May said the case likely will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"This is the first time a court has upheld the notion that one can be forced to give contributions to politicians," said attorney Clint Bolick. "This ruling cannot and will not stand."
The Clean Elections Institute, an advocacy group whose lawyer urged the Supreme Court to uphold the surcharges, hailed the ruling.
"Opponents of Clean Elections have failed once again in their attempt to undermine the will of Arizona voters," said Cecilia Martinez, the institute's executive director.