The same group of five Supreme Court justices that gave us Citizens United have used the First Amendment as a means to strike down a 13-year-old Arizona campaign finance law that provided matching public $$ for candidates who agreed to use only public funds for their campaigns and who were facing extremely well-heeled opponents.
The reasoning given by Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, was that balancing the campaign expenditures of the wealthy violated free speech. Or something to that effect. To wit:
“We hold that Arizona’s matching funds scheme substantially burdens protected political speech without serving a compelling state interest and, therefore, violates the First Amendment.”
“….. ‘Leveling the playing field’ can sound like a good thing. But in a democracy, campaigning for office is not a game. It is a critically important form of speech.”
The LA Times David Savage has one of the better reports on the ruling with a good overview of the POV’s of both sides. He notes that Justice Elena Kagan took on Roberts directly in her dissent:
She said Arizona’s law, adopted by voters in 1998 after an election scandal in which state legislators were caught on video stuffing campaign cash into gym bags, would produce more speech by the candidates, not less.
“Less corruption, more speech,” Kagan wrote. “Robust campaigns leading to the election of representatives not beholden to the few, but accountable to the many. The people of Arizona might have expected a decent respect for those objectives,” she wrote. “Today, they do not get it. …Truly, democracy is not a game.”
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post also has a very good report on the decision, which—thankfully—does not outlaw public campaign financing altogether.
In truth, despite my snarky tone, it’s a complicated issue so before you form an opinion I recommend you read up a bit.