elections act one act as a disincentive for them to engage in political advocacy back believe that warning has since come true and they have determined as an organization that they do not wish to engage in political advocacy in the state of arizona while the act is in place but there are some important issues and facts that counter that issue and that determination because a p s is still an incorporated entity they still have a presence in arizona and their stated intention as demonstrated by the declaration of miss orient arizona case was actually easily distinguishable because the plaintiffs in that case had left public employment and had no intention of returning here we nearly have a p s sort of how does that change  that they have a part of this interest is paying attention to who gets elected in who gets defeated for statewide office and other officers in the state of arizona so when a candidate comes ballot that they wish to either oppose your support using independent expenditures or other methods or political advocacy the contingency is not are they going to to get back into the field they wish to come back and engage in their first amendment right as their wallet as it is their first amendment in the in the arizona constitution guarantees them to do but they have indicated that we do not wish to do that under the rules that are currently in place and because the rules are currently in place they have no reason to continue to file lobbying reports urging gauging the type of regulatory regime that currently exist for a for a pac in the state of arizona i guess the question is if they want the referee to make a call they have to stay on the field they do not need to stay on the field if the game is not being this man the pact my understanding what happened your honor is that they disbanded the parent because there was a change in leadership they didn't understand the new leadership did not understand why we were filing or why they were filing these re s bonded in the way it was it was a decision that bad blundering may be one way to phrase it it would be a decision that they said why we why are we taking all this time and making all and expanding all this energy to find are violated by the independent expenditures provision but about the corporation and the act coercion would not be rendered moot dissociation hasn't made a coercion argument the candidates have what we're dealing with is a situation where at the time this lawsuit was filed the association was not registered as a pac and had not made any independent expenditure and the state election could not two months voluntarily terminated its status as a pac and can no longer make any independent expenditure in the state so the only difference between the association and really anybody in this room is it the association once upon a turn was qualified to make an independent expenditure and never get compare that to clarke where the plaintiff had been operating a business twenty businesses the business because of the ordinance that was challenged well compare that to to the southern oregon case where the family had been operating for eighteen years and then had trouble because of an ordinance r that would be my intention thank you the challenge provisions there is on a so called clean elections act unconstitutional because they allowed the state to enter the playing field and put its thumb on the scale and took the balance in favor of taxpayer financed candidates consider the following three examples under the act privately financed candidates are forced to abide by the actually expenditure limitations in speech with regard to the candidate plaintiffs in his most recent race for state treasurer plaintiff's appellant dean martin faced a publicly financed opponent who had no primary opposition the result was that his opponent received thirty seven thousand dollars in the primary lifeson seventy one thousand dollars in the general election for a total of one hundred eighteen thousand dollars to spend  dollar he would raise about seventy one thousand his opponent would receive a dollar a dollar for dollar match maybe she began the campaign with thirty percent more than he had and the result was that he did not make any more expenditures the u s supreme court and buckley said that candidates have an unfair to right to make unlimited expenditures in a campaign for office however as a result of the operation of the act basically well it is not a direct from the taishan it is an indirect limitation there's a very real consequence to a candidate spending additional dollars after he has raised the expenditure limit under the act and that is that for every dollar he raises his opponent will receive a dollar writing that your opponent is going to receive a cash subsidy from the state will result and speech not being made by candidates and other independent expenditure groups advocacy groups if a group is going to go out in the marketplace and purchase an advertisement for five thousand dollars and they know that the state is going to basically step up to the a t m in this case  tax payers money and send five thousand dollars to the their the candidate they oppose that's going to make every advocacy group twice before engaging in political discourse in fact that's exactly what's happened in arizona and the last two state wide elections we had and advocacy group known as mainstream arizona that started making independent expenditures that they thought were designed not to trigger matching funds that the commission said that there was those in pain expenditures did in party in the arizona democratic party sending out straight mail which they thought was going to be exempt under the act i had to find out that the commission was going to consider making sure matching funds for those ads and they stop spending  difference between response and speech and knowing that because you have spoken with those that can receive additional resources in the form of taxpayer money but the candidate state punishes them by placing the burden of ensuring our publicly funded candidates receive equal funding directly on the privately financed candidate it's up to date it's up to the candidates to file up to thirty seven additional trigger report s in order to ensure that the gnashing funds are received by their opponents and also the fact that matching funds are based on the gross amount raised results in incredible financial disparities being  a point five million dollars a matching funds seven hundred fifty to each of his publicly funded opponents and the circus census and the end of the arizona citizenry city has the legislature has no more right to train john of violate the constitutional rights of candidates advocacy groups or political parties then with the legislature  finally actually i will reserve the rest of my time for a bo arizona clean elections act cuts the tie between money in politics permits a wider variety of people to run for public office and it lets candidates spend their time on the issues rather than on fundraising poets argue that the act is coercive but they never get around to applying the test for coercion under the cases that they cite the courts recognize states have compelling interest in attracting candidates to public funding they state that there could come a point where a public funding statute could become corso although the cases haven't found it everyone that that takes in a contribution spends money to bring in the contribution but what you're really trying to bring in as publicizing the participating candidate has to spend the same money to bring in the are coming in and you compare that against the restrictions in this case in order to become a clean elections candidate candidate castro agree after the initial seed money which has to be spent by the end of the qualifying period has to agree to exist entirely on public funds candidate can't go over the candidates based allotment when asked he he's up against a non conscious painting candidate the nun participator goes over the base allotment at that point question right if you're running as a participating candidate you can be running as as a republican a democrat or an independent it doesn't matter no i want to having difficulty communicating i did is the democratic party able to raise money for the democratic candidate yes and that's an independent expenditure and so you can have a chance to play and have your party raising money for you the participating candidate has to sit down once that the nonparticipating candidate richness the pictures paid in candidates funding limit that now participate or congrats and such contributions are very long participating candidate  a participating candidate is up against a nonparticipating candidate and the nonparticipating candidates party is trying thousands and thousands of dollars into the election then the participating does it violate constitutional rights when it clearly does not because no one participating candidates have a choice they can either and accept the x funding limits when not opt in and have unlimited rights to raise money they can they can take independent expenditures they can go out to as many contributors the same want and raise money and this cuts the time between individual contributors and cand and it permits it through those first amendment values by promoting people who don't have ties to big business anybody who is a big contributor would contribute to the party pardon anyone who was a big contributor would contribute to the  there is that it violates first amendment to have a limit on expenditures that limits on expenditures restrict speech but he didn't say that that there's any problem with public money up to three times the initial funding would be used for the opposing candidate couldn't match that that's right who was participating that's right now i understand that now let's say the opposing candidate who was participating in their political party decides to make independent expenditure of the same two hundred coercion analysis against the restrictions under the act every dollar that comes in by way of matching funds puts the focus of paving candidate one dollar closer to the funding ceiling where everything gets cut off and the candidate public budget that she would have would be a situation where the participating candidate wouldn't be the one who's speaking what the act wants is to give bryce to participating candidates to a broad spectrum of candidates you'll be turning over the the matching two to the political action committees who may have a totally different agenda they may have a totally different message and they may be for not participating in the program and the most recent election candidates stand and who is a privately financed candidate facing a taxpayer financed opponent experienced severe pain that comes as a on principle and refuse to take political welfare does not mean that the system on its face is not inherently corrosive or doesn't trust candidates to participate by either accepting expenditure limits even if they're privately finance financing its two thousand election only only like three out of eighteen candidates refused to accept public funding master sam and it was one of those individuals and after the  and that during the election what we saw was that the arizona democratic party spent one million dollars in independent expenditures and support of their candidate none of which apply to her at the met expenditure limit so was an additional one million dollars in her benefit but when there's a republican party responded in kind with three hundred thousand dollars of benefit expenditures the state immediately matched that three hundred thousand dollars to his publicly financed democratic opponent the only compelling interest that has been identified by the u s supreme court to in french speech in a political context is the use to combat action or the appearance of craft things it's a debatable point whether or not the state has a compelling interest in encouraging or offering benefits to individuals to participate in this type of public financing scheme but what we do know is that while the states may be able to offer incentives they can't go so far as to actually discouraged in the last two statewide election cycles demonstrates that the act is in fact coercing candidates to abide by expenditure limits and for parties to to or to not engage fact that the act because under the act the state creates reasons for individuals not to participate is a person a violation of the first