final case on the calendar is corrine vs condo honor my name's john franco i'm from burlington vermont i'm representing the the pellets in this case this case involves three challenges to the provisions of the vermont campaign finance act as they relate to publicly finance candidates the first in which i'd like to make the main focus of my argument this morning is the version of the vermont campaign finance act which allows no political party contributions to publicly finance candidates while at the same time allowing unlimited political party contributions to traditionally finance candidates isn't this the deal the statute made well that's the deal the statute made but the statute as an internal can see is internally inconsistent with the legislature's findings a legislature is findings were that unlimited public a limited contributions to political parties were an anti corruption measure and they were necessary to counteract the effect of political action committees the large individual donations that go to political action committees and so for the overwhelming majority of political candidates and ramani got to understand there are only two offices that are potentially publicly financed in all other cases this unlimited there's unlimited  political party financing permitted and the legislature made a specific finding that it was necessary to counteract the corrupting effect of pacs and why isn't that saying only to office only two offices are eligible with private funds or the candidate can choose to operate under a public financing system and if the candidate chooses to operate under the public financing system  candidate is essentially has to adhere to those those rules but the candidates choice right it's a candidate's choice but that's runs afoul of the unconstitutional condition doctrine which has long held that you cannot condition the expenditure of the grant of public money on restrictions of first amendment activities in order to obtain a result that you could not otherwise obtain and that's the slippery slope you're a magine if that were the case you would have a you could have a public financing system that began to manipulate the political content of what the publicly financed candidates said by saying for example you can't if you want financing you can't campaign on certain issues like climate change you could have restrictions that say you can't use certain media you can advertise on c n n or you can advertise in any of that these are just theoretical these don't exist exactly is what your argument i'm trying to understand my argument is there can't simply be an argument that if you take the money you have to live by whatever that whatever conditions we have the organist the conditions have to be constitutional conditions that is the unconstitutional condition doctrine it's in perry versus interment frost first frost trucking goes back to the twenty's the unconstitutional conditions since you voluntarily decide to abide by them or not the unconstitutional condition is prohibited in a public finance candidate from having any coordinated campaign activity with a political party in the case of randall versus a row the court or the u s supreme court so that's a very important association interest you're being told you've got to give that up  in the other the other key case to understand here is colorado to colorado to said it a lounge in that case congress to restrict political party contributions to candidates coordinated contributions to only for one reason and one reason alone to prohibit the funneling of large individual contributions from individuals through political parties in excuse me into the political candidate there was no evidence in this case of a funneling problem the legislature in its findings with the two thousand and fourteen amendments said the funneling problem existed with tax not with political parties so there's no foundation for this restriction which is a restriction on the rights of political association to publicly finance candidates and again our argument it's no different than if the state tried to do these other things like limit your message or limit your medium or what about targeting audiences you can't campaign a certain audiences because we want to skew voter turnout i mean there's all if if the if the the rule was simply if you take a it's you know sort of what i call the father of the teenager if you live in my house you get to live under my rules that can't be the rule of public financing because of the pernicious insidious effects it would allow what happened in this case it quite literally created the impression and the dean koren case when he ran in two thousand and fourteen that parties that he was the nominee of the progressive party in the democratic party did not support his candidacy and judge sessions the trial judge made a finding that he was told by the attorney general's office point blank as a publicly fine it's candidate you have no you shouldn't have even contact or had any conversations with the vermont democratic party that runs directly a file of what the supreme court said in the randall case about the rights of association between candidates and their parties between the parties contributors can't complain if publicly financed candidates agree not to take their contributions and you've got colorado to which she mentions that says that we treat parties and supporters the same  regarding the ability to to to make coordinated expenditures so why doesn't that mean that that parties can't complain if vermont prohibit it prevents candidates from accepting who accept public financing from accepting contributions on related expenditures from parties because again the case law right up through the most recent case of mccutcheon says restrictions campaign finance restrictions must relate to the prevention of corruption or its appearance in this case there is no prevention of corruption in its appearance because a legislature has specifically found the political party or the provision that affected now within a governor's arkham and then state senator and they may they disallow eligibility for campaign financing if one announces or engages in fundraising prior thuggery fifteen in normally that's not a problem but what happened in the twenty fifteen twenty sixteen election cycle is there was the governor announced he was not seeking reelection in the campaign season really started out in early twenty fifteen and that restriction essentially is what i call the binding and gagging provision that does not allow somebody thinking about public financing from even announcing his or her intention until february fifteenth in this case it was almost it would have been a year after the real campaign real campaigning started and the real fundraising started in one of the things that the lieutenant governor's argument testified to as he said i couldn't simply be on the sidelines while other things were going on the campaign was going on and i needed to get a door smits what's what's the proper standard for valuing the constitutionality of twenty nine eighty three i think the standard is is generally speaking it's ok but in this case and under these circumstances it unfairly and then unnecessarily burden the political opportunity of the public you find his candidate and we're really asking for an exception exception in those circumstances where the campaign is actually started before february fifteenth and then there's it's just got to other interests have to yield to that you can expect that the public can find its candidate to to have to sit on the sidelines bound and gagged in not being able to participate in the last provision is the provision the prohibition against any financing even after the candidates qualified and that goes back to buckley that that doesn't have anything to do with of corruption or preventing the appearance of corruption thank you there's still a state  proceeding and then what's the status of that no the state proceeding i'm actually limited in what i can say about the state proceeding was resolved shortly before thanksgiving without a judgment good morning your honor sir in this case what the plaintiffs seek mr save all the benefits of public financing for their campaigns while accepting none of the restrictions that go along with that public money and they argue that if there are any restrictions that come along with that public money that put them at a disadvantage compared to candidates who do not participate in public financing then those restrictions must be unconstitutional if they make this argument despite the fact that they have a voluntary choice as to whether or not to accept public financing what it what about their the argument that your adversary makes and it's and page twenty four of their of the opening brief where they bring up a hypothetical and which the state conditions  the receipt of public funds on complying with various restrictions for example not discussing various issues and as you heard in argument today not to not talking about climate change or other issues would that situation be unconstitutional so i respond in two ways first of all permanent statute doesn't have any conditions of that sort whatsoever second of all there are limits on what kind of conditions can be imposed along with public financing and the test is whether or not they are rationally related to the purpose of the statute all of the restrictions here are rationally related to the purposes of reducing the influence of public of private donors on candidates or on maintaining the uses of state money for for the not to dock to exhaust state funds by giving away enormous amounts of money by having some qualifying triggers so all of the restrictions that are part of the vermont statute meet that rational basis test and they would even meet a higher test but it's only the only recognize as as this court has done in the republican national committee case following the test set forth in buckley that the way to determine whether or not there's any infringement of rights for a candidate who participate in public financing is you look to see was it a voluntary system or was it a system that coerces the candidate into participating and you decide that by looking at the package of benefits that candidate would receive by participating in public financing and see is that so rich that everyone is going to want to do it and indeed here it is not so rich that everyone is going to do it because it has some restrictions it's indeed those restrictions that the plaintiffs are complaining about fundamental rights so if you don't have an fischman your rational basis review i'm having trouble understanding the rationale behind twenty nine eight three a's restrictions on the timing of announcements and fund raising could you certainly explain a little bit more wonderingly so the the restriction on timing says that a candidate who's who wants to receive public financing can announce until february fifteenth the election year and that starts the time period for the candidate to receive qualifying contributions so the hurdle that the candidate has to to go through to receive the hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money is during a roughly four month period which starts by riff and ends with the beginning of june when the grant would be given is during that limited time period the candidate has to raise for lieutenant governor at seventeen thousand five hundred dollars from more than seven hundred fifty candidate donors in amounts fifty dollars or less so you have this restricted time to show that you are a viable candidate if a candidate could announce much curlier and extend that time then that candidate wouldn't be meeting the test that the legislature set forward and having a test of that sort is is a kind of hurdle that all campaign finance statutes put forward they all want to make sure that  ask people for money before that you can receive up to you can accept or expand more than up to two thousand dollars so essentially you can have you can receive seed money and this timing you know the question of whether february fifteenth is a good day january fifteenth december fifteenth that's a valid legislative judgment that legislatures familiar with how campaigns run and that is just  fine tuning that is allowed for the legislature to do in setting this parameter for this time period what this twenty nine eight three eight do that twenty nine eight one for doesn't do or maybe does twenty nine eight one four do all that's necessary if twenty nine eight one four defines the room on campaign financing qualifying qualification period as the period beginning february fifteenth of each even numbered year and ending on the day in which the primary petitions must be file does not achieve the same result without limiting speech well that definitional section in twenty nine eighty one four defines the time period for the qualification period but it doesn't say what the chemicals do during that period but the thing is if a candidate could say in december i'm going to be running and i'm going to be looking for public financing and i want lots of people out there to start getting ready it would be giving a jumpstart and extending that it would  it practicality be extending that qualification period and it to have it be the kind of test that the legislature thought was appropriate which was to have a roughly four month period for but for getting the word out and raising that those qualifying funds it was up to the legislature to to specify that there would be this that he wouldn't be able to actually announce until that date it's i think that kind of detail and in fact attorney franco said this was an unusual year where candidates actually started campaigning earlier and maybe this is something that over time the legislature can adjust but it based that february fifteenth starting time on the practices in vermont that were the trends of how candidates campaigned for lieutenant governor and governor and there usually are very short time period since we have elections for both those offices every two years you people really don't start running for them tilt towards the end of the legislative session of the election year and so favorite fifteenth is actually even earlier than that so i'd like to reiterate that because this program is voluntary rational basis review is the appropriate level of review each of the restrictions that are imposed here are supported by rational bases the restriction on political party contributions is no different than the restriction on contributions by anybody else all donors are treated the same way in being forbidden from giving contributions after the candidate accepts public financing and that's a choice that the candidate can make just as a candidate can make other choices on how to run a campaign so accepting that restriction is part of those choices the court below dismissed all of plaintiffs claims and we ask that this court affirm the objectives in the one it eliminated corruption in its appearance in a provided relief from private financing prohibiting party support of a publicly financed candidate doesn't go to either one of those objectives goes to neither one that the constitution permits limitations on the aggregate support of a party to a candidate what it said it was ok to limit it to prevent again the term it used was funneling of large contributions by large individual donations to individual candidates in for that reason and again because of the legislature's findings in this case that political party support of candidates with an anti corruption anti pac effort this restriction on facebook publicly finance candidates is not rationally related it runs contrary to the legislature's findings and i quoted them in the brief but i wanted to specifically point out findings eleven twelve and thirteen that accompanied the two thousand and fourteen amendments to this act it said it is appropriate to limit contributions from political mitty's without imposing the same limits on political parties it talked about funneling being a problem with pacs not with political parties which are said political parties are created by the representative process of delegates throughout the state of vermont it made a fundamentally different judgment about the role of political parties in candidates than congress made that if colorado two was based on this was a sea change in the thinking about financing in  but then to have these outliers out here to say well the two races where there are publicly financed that can be publicly financed and i think historically there been maybe four races that have actually been publicly financed can be subject to this restriction and everybody else isn't then that starts to run afoul about other things that have been talked about in the jurisprudence buckley talks about unfairly in another unnecessarily burdening the political opportunity of a candidate well this would do that it it it's not closely drawn for purposes of preventing corruption it restricts the political participation of some to enhance the relative participation of others it restricts political persecution of the candidates again the initial argument