Patrick McGreevy of the LA Times claims that a taxpayer group filed a lawsuit against the governor of California for passing a new law that will allow for public funds to finance political campaigns.

The lawsuit in question was filed in the Sacramento Superior Court by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Accordingly, they claim that such a law violates Proposition 73, which was approved by voters over 20 years ago and prohibits public funds being used to fund political campaigns.

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association claims that “It runs directly contrary to the expressed language of the Political Reform Act”. Moreover, he states that the law cannot be changed without another vote of the people. He further argues that using public funds to finance political campaigns is far from fair because “it’s the power of government skewing the political process”. Governor Brown declined commenting on the matter.

On the other hand, Ben Allen, the congressman representing the district of Santa Monica declared that such a law would help reduce the influence of special interests in political campaigns and “anything we can do to empower communities to reduce the influence of money in campaigns is a good thing”. He stated recently that he believes the bill will survive the legal attack.

He argues that without the law, “we are powerless to offer candidates an alternative to the current reliance on special interest dollars”. Where do we, as taxpayers stand on such an issue?