The receipt of public subsidies or benefits should never be conditioned on surrendering First Amendment rights. That would penalize the exercise of those rights. Since candidates have an unqualified right to spend as much as they can to get their message to the voters, and to spend as much of their own funds as they can, and to raise funds from supporters all over the country, they cannot be made to surrender those rights in order to receive public benefits. In Buckley the Court suggested that Congress might establish a system where candidates would choose freely and voluntarily between public funding with expenditure limits and private spending without limits, so long as the non-participating candidate remained free to engage in unlimited private funding and spending. S.25 fails this test, for its overall purpose and effect are to limit speech, not enhance it.
Privileged candidates get free broadcast time, and sharply reduced broadcast and mailing rates.
Disfavored candidates must pay double promotional costs for the very same communications. The bill contains triggers which dramatically raise the spending ceilings and the contribution caps for privileged candidates whenever disfavored candidates threaten to mount a serious, well-funded campaign, or whenever independent groups speak out against a privileged candidate. In effect, the bill tries to insure that privileged candidates will always be able to counteract the messages of disfavored candidates and their supporters. The law stacks the deck against the candidate who will not agree to limits, which will usually be the challenger trying to defeat an incumbent. In short, this scheme does everything possible to enable the candidate who agrees to spending limits to overwhelm the candidate who does not.