Can't afford a lawyer? No free speech for you. Colorado campaign finance regulations censor ordinary citizens.

• Author: Sibilla, Nick
• Position: Matt Arnold's cases against the Coloradans for a Better Future

For someone campaigning to help run Colorado's university system, Matt Arnold didn't seem too keen on higher education. His 2012 Republican primary campaign for a spot on the Board of Regents made headlines after the candidate admitted that he had misstated finishing his master's thesis, maligned those who received degrees for their "pursuit of academic BS that no one cares about" by calling them "a bunch of people who hang letters after their names, but they have no useful skills," and then publicized his opponent's home address. In the heat of the controversy, a group called Coloradans for a Better Future (CBF) ran an ad criticizing Arnold's campaign as "an embarrassing distraction." This, it seems, was the moment that Arnold's mission changed from winning political office to an anti-speech vendetta.

Even one billable hour in pro bono legal aid would quickly blow through Colorado's contribution limit. Citizens with few resources would be utterly defenseless against litigious opponents.

Proving the old adage that academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low, Arnold began an all-out legal attack on his detractors. Appearing on a local radio show in 2014, he threw down the gauntlet: CBF's supporters, he said, "need to be dragged into court" and "exposed for the cowardly, backstabbing scum that they are."

Arnold and his newly founded Campaign Integrity Watchdog group proceeded to file complaint after complaint against CBF. At one point, he even demanded that the state disbar CBF's attorneys.

The relentless litigation paid off. In 2014, an insolvent CBF filed a "termination report" with the Colorado Secretary of State. But that only prompted Arnold's fourth complaint. He now claims that a lawyer had helped CBF file for termination and that the lawyer's pro bono aid amounted to a political "contribution" that should have been reported.

As in many states, political participants in Colorado are subject to strict caps on contributions. State legislature candidates can receive no more than $400 per donor during an election cycle. Political committees--politically engaged citizens who have banded together into a group--can accept only $575.

But campaign finance attorneys regularly charge hundreds of dollars per hour for their services. So an organization that received as little as one billable hour in pro bono or reduced-cost legal aid would quickly blow through the state's contribution limit. Citizens with few resources would be utterly defenseless against litigious opponents.

As far back as 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court held that pro bono representation is a "fundamental" right that merits protection under the First Amendment. Regulations cannot "abridge unnecessarily the associational freedom of nonprofit organizations" that offer legal assistance, the high court ruled in in re Primus. The only other court to consider this issue--in Washington state--ruled that regulating free legal assistance as a contribution is "unconstitutional."

DESPITE THESE CLEAR precedents, the Colorado Court of Appeals sided with Arnold, ruling in April that free or discounted...