Most of the news about House Bill 589 centers on its voter ID provisions, but the current version of the bill would also repeal taxpayer financing of campaigns.

Such a move should take place given recent Supreme Court and federal court rulings, and in recent years no additional money was directed to taxpayer campaign-financing funds. Nevertheless, as discussed in JLF’s Agenda 2012, taxpayer campaign-finance schemes violate taxpayers’ rights of free speech and association and have various other unintended negative consequences.

Daren Bakst’s report from 2009 explored those problems and the clear unconstitutionality of the taxpayer-financing system.