This New York Times report on a challenge to a Vermont campaign finance law that the Supreme Court will hear today makes no sense:

The Vermont campaign finance case, Randall v. Sorrell, No. 04-1528, tests the court’s current understanding of its watershed ruling 30 years ago in Buckley v. Valeo, which upheld limits on political contributions but determined that campaign spending was a form of political speech that the First Amendment did not permit the government to curtail.

A majority of the current court has expressed disagreement, or at least discomfort, with one or another aspect of that ruling. Justice Kennedy has called it a “halfway house” that does not provide a coherent framework for addressing the role of money in politics.

But a federal appeals court panel in New York, ruling last year in the Vermont case, went further. A 2-to-1 majority said Buckley v. Valeo had not, in fact, completely shut the door on regulating campaign spending. The appeals court found two justifications sufficiently “compelling” to overcome constitutional objections: deterring corruption, and relieving politicians of the distractions of nonstop fund-raising.

Vermont’s spending limits, ranging from $300,000 per election cycle for a governor’s race down to $2,000 for a seat in the Vermont House, may well be constitutional, the appeals court said while sending the case back to the Federal District Court in Burlington, Vt., for an examination of whether there were other means, less close to the line, to accomplish the same result.

“[R]elieving politicians of the distractions of nonstop fundraising?” The Vermont law caps contributions at $400. In a state that small, finding enough contributors to max out your funds is (I assume) difficult. Presumably, if the appeals court were actually concerned about relieving politicians of this burden, they would strike down contribution limits, which force candidates at the state and especially the federal level to spend most of their time calling donors begging for a few thousand dollars at a time. This not only keeps politicians away from ordinary people, but makes it exceptionally difficult to raise the funds necessary to challenge entrenched incumbents.

As I wrote before, “We should have unlimited individual donations and instant disclosure online, which would keep more money flowing to parties and candidates who are directly accountable to voters and make it possible for more challengers to wage well-funded campaigns. Let people make up their minds about the sources of campaign funds.”