Contrary to the challengers’ claims, the Arizona law doesn’t prevent privately financed candidates from speaking or spending as much as they like, or from raising as much as they like, or from raising as much money as they need. Nor does it place any limits on how much anyone may spend in support or opposition to a candidate. The law simply ensures that, when a candidate relying on private money speaks, the publicly financed candidate has the money to answer.

The notion that more speech inhibits or corrupts public debate contradicts the very premises of the Citizens United decision that government has no business limiting the source, content or quality of the speech deployed in debate. Indeed, decades of free speech opinions proclaim that the government has no business shutting down speech no matter what it says or who is saying it; it will not prohibit hate speech, for example, or speech glorifying the sexual subjugation of women. Our First Amendment law trusts the people to choose what they will listen to and whom they will believe.

That noble, deep tradition has stood up against every claim that certain speech will confuse or mislead or drown out the more virtuous speech of others. The Arizona challengers in the two cases — McComish v. Bennett and Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett — believe their speech will be swamped by publicly financed candidates. That “drowning out” argument may be accepted in other countries, but our First Amendment denies that more speech silences the speech it challenges: it only answers it.

Of course, because publicly financed campaigns involve the government’s footing the bill for answering speech, that speech is portrayed as being in a different category. That too is an argument that runs against our free speech law. Over and over — whether it is financing artistic creativity, or campaigns against smoking or for premarital abstinence — the Supreme Court has insisted that government may add its voice to the private debate without being thought to inhibit or drown out the message of private speakers. And the Arizona law does not even pick the message, but merely adds to the voice of any qualifying candidate.

The broadest attacks on the Arizona statute, outlined in amicus briefs before the Supreme Court, would make any provision of public financing unconstitutional. But public financing — provided by 16 states and numerous local governments, including New York City — remains an important option for governments interested in providing candidates with an alternative to dependence on private contributions.