Skip to main content
Policy Forum

Is Taxpayer Financing of Campaigns Constitutional?

Watch the Event

Join the conversation on X using #CatoEvents. Follow @CatoInstitute on X to get future event updates, live streams, and videos from the Cato Institute.

Date and Time
-
Location
Auditorium/Wintergarden
Share This Event
Featuring
Featuring William Maurer, Attorney, Institute for Justice; and Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist, Public Citizen; moderated by John Samples, Director, Center for Representative Government, Cato Institute.

Following the landmark decision in Citizens United, advocates for more campaign finance regulation have turned to enacting taxpayer financing of campaigns. They hope to build on state programs of taxpayer financing, such as the one in Arizona. But recent Supreme Court decisions call into question the provisions in the Arizona law that seek to “level the playing field” by punishing the speech of independent groups. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether to take up the constitutional challenge to Arizona’s taxpayer financing law. Please join us for a lively debate on propriety of government financing of electoral speech.