More on Today’s Opinion in the Vermont Cases

By Kevin Russell
on Jun 26, 2006 at 1:34 pm

Mark Alexander has these thoughts on today’s decision:

Today, the United States Supreme Court unwisely rejected Vermont’s campaign spending limits.

In upholding Buckley, the Court failed to find a compelling interest in upholding Vermont’s Act 64. In today’s opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court did not listen to the voice of the People of Vermont, and to provide meaningful campaign finance reform. Instead of deferring to the notions of federalism inherent in respecting a law passed by the State Legislature, the Court instead relied on notions of stare decisis to uphold Buckley’s onerous restrictions on campaign expenditures.

In its nearly blind allegiance to stare decisis, the Court ignored the state of reality today, namely that elected are constantly torn from their official duties, in order to attend to the demands of fundraising. There is ample evidence that candidates focus their time on a limited number of people throughout their campaigns, in order to raise the massive sums of money needed to run effective campaigns. As a result, the people are denied the chance to have input into the process. Being removed in such a way hurts American representative democracy, in which the people are to be engaged in the electoral process.

In addition, when elected officials are running for office they sacrifice their official duties, in order to pursue fundraising. The Constitution specifically protects the acts of elected officials, and indicates that it is indeed compelling to serve the people. The Court fails to engage in this debate, instead relying upon a narrow reading of stare decisis.

The Court’s opinion does not engage this issue squarely, but instead reiterates Buckley’s prohibition on expenditure limits. In other words, the opinion shuts down one avenue of argument, but doesn’t discuss its merit.

Justice Stevens aptly points out the compelling nature of the problem, and his reasoning will one day be looked back on as a clarion call for a new era of reform. For now, those who favor an end to the devastating impact of spiraling fundraising can look to public financing and the prospects of a constitutional amendment.