Notwithstanding this important victory, on July 25 Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell announced that he will not enforce certain provisions of Vermont's campaign finance law in future cases and that he will seek a change in the law, opening the floodgates of money in Vermont state elections.
One of the first beneficiaries of this non-enforcement was Attorney General Bill Sorrell himself. An out-of-state PAC started purchasing nearly $184,000 of TV ads in support of Attorney General Sorrell's re-election campaign against Chittenden County State's Attorney T.J. Donovan soon after Mr. Sorrell's announcement that he would not enforce Vermont's limits on "independent" PAC contributions.
The authors of this article reviewed US Supreme Court cases and
found four grounds on which Vermont can enforce and defend its campaign
finance law--notwithstanding the Supreme Court decision in Citizens
United. These grounds, and the US Supreme Court cases supporting, them
are described in a detailed letter to Vermont Attorney General Bill
Sorrell and Assistant Vermont Attorney General Megan J. Shafritz. They
include state sovereign immunity, standing, the political question
doctrine, and an exception to Citizens United carved out by the Supreme
Court for foreign sources of money.
Most importantly, the authors found recent US Supreme Court decisions showing that the usual exception to sovereign immunity--called "the Young fiction"--does not apply when the fundamental sovereign legitimacy of the state government is at risk by a suit against the state. Nothing is more fundamental to the legitimacy of state government than election integrity that ensures a government of, by, and for the people. That election integrity was unnecessarily put at risk by Mr. Sorrell's non-enforcement of Vermont campaign finance law.
August 22, 2012
Bill Sorrell, Vermont Attorney General
Megan J. Shafritz, Esq.,
Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division Chief
Office of the Attorney General
109 State Street, 3rd Floor
Montpelier, Vermont 05609-1001
Dear Attorney General Sorrell and Assistant Attorney General Shafritz:
Thank you very much for responding to my email to Attorney General Sorrell regarding the defense of Vermont law restricting corporate and individual spending in Vermont elections. This letter also responds to public statements about sovereign immunity made on August 16 by Mr. Sorrell during a debate in Burlington with TJ Donovan, his opponent in the Democratic Primary.
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