From John Bonifaz:

The US Supreme Court today granted review of Vermont's mandatory campaign spending limits law, setting the stage for an historic revisitation of the Court's 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo which equated money with speech and sanctioned the current system of unlimited campaign spending. The Supreme Court's ruling in this case has the potential to create a landscape change in the way we finance elections in this country.

The National Voting Rights Institute has been at the forefront of this movement to revisit Buckley since our founding in 1994. NVRI serves as counsel for a broad coalition of Vermont public interest organizations, candidates, and voters in defense of Vermont's law. Last year, NVRI won a landmark victory before the federal appeals court in NY in this case in which the appeals court ruled that Vermont's limits can be constitutional.

Oral argument in this case (in which Brenda Wright, NVRI's managing attorney will participate) will be in January or February with a decision by the Court expected by the end of June 2006.

Here is the NYTimes article on this running in tomorrow's edition (I believe on the front page): Supreme Court Takes On Spending Limits for Candidates

And here is the release we issued today:
http://www.nvri.org/library/cases/vermont/nvri_cert_grant_release_092705...

This is the third case since the Court's ruling on Buckley to test the constitutionality of mandatory campaign spending limits. NVRI has been involved in all three cases, with the Vermont case being the first since Buckley to reach the Supreme Court.