Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett

Arizona’s Clean Elections Act (the act), passed by a ballot initiative in 1998, granted an initial lump sum of money to qualifying candidates for state office who agreed to accept certain campaign restrictions. These restrictions were intended to reduce political corruption. The act also contained a matching-funds provision, which granted an almost dollar-for-dollar amount of matching funds to participating candidates once their privately funded opponents and independent expenditure groups, who were not participating in the clean-elections program, outspent them. Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC, several candidates running for state office, and others (collectively, Free Enterprise) (plaintiffs) sued Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett and others (collectively, Bennett) (defendants), arguing that the act’s matching-funds provision infringed on privately funded candidates’ and the independent expenditure groups’ First Amendment right to free speech. The district court enjoined the state from enforcing the matching-funds provision, finding it imposed a substantial burden on free speech without a compelling state interest. The Ninth Circuit reversed, finding that the provision imposed a minimal burden on free speech and furthered the compelling state interest of combatting political corruption. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.