Yesterday, CCP detailed developments across the country affecting tax financed campaign programs. Challenges to these systems are proceeding in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida and Wisconsin (where CCP is challenging the judicial program).
Today, the James Madison Center for Free Speech, run by campaign finance lawyer James Bopp, Jr., sends word that it’s representing a group of plaintiffs challenging Maine’s system.
As in the other state’s, Maine provides additional government funding to participating candidates when they’re outspend by candidates who decline the taxpayer subsidies.
“One of the plaintiffs in the case, Rep. Andre Cushing, is state representative for District 39 of the Maine legislature, and is currently running for re-election in 2010. Rep. Cushing hasn’t taken public funding for his campaign, and doesn’t think the money he raises should trigger additional funding to his opponent. ‘I don’t support having taxpayers foot the bill for a politician’s election campaign’ says Cushing, ‘but making me fund my opponent by giving him a dollar for each dollar I raise is simply unconstitutional,’” according to a press release from the James Madison Center for Free Speech.
There are a few jurisdictions left with so-called trigger, rescue or matching funds—West Virginia, New York City, some races in New Mexico—but courts are rapidly ruling these systems unconstitutional.