Speech as in beer? On its way out in Arizona.

By now most readers will have heard of the Institute for Justice's Wednesday victory in striking down the "matching funds" provisions of Arizona's so-called "Clean Elections" system.

The text of Judge Silver's order is not yet available. I'm wondering what information she has now that she didn't have a year ago. The preliminary ruling in McComish v. Brewer was back in August 2008. A delay until the end of the 2008 election cycle, so as not to throw the election into chaos and call into question the legitimacy of the results, was certainly in order, but a final ruling should have been given as soon as possible, so that active campaigns--including that of Dean Martin, who is both a "Clean Elections" candidate and one of those who brought a legal challenge to the system--would be minimally damage by the outcome, and the election be truly as "clean" as possible.