John C. Bonifaz

About John's Work

John Bonifaz is a public interest lawyer who uses innovative litigation to reexamine campaign finance reform arguments typically debated on first amendment grounds.

Through the National Voting Rights Institute, Bonifaz recasts legal arguments to focus on fourteenth amendment protections, challenging the relationship between money and politics. His pioneering Yale Law and Policy Review article, “Equal Protection and the Wealth Primary” (1994), which he co-authored, outlines the legal strategy with which he and the Institute have approached the controversial 1976 Buckley v. Valeo Supreme Court ruling. While Buckley v. Valeo equates campaign spending with first amendment free speech, Bonifaz examines campaign financing from the standpoint of fourteenth amendment equal protection rights. This strategy places campaign finance practices in a tradition of voting rights law, and asks whether these practices are fair and democratic and whether money effectively disenfranchises those unable to contribute to political campaigns. On both affirmative and defensive fronts, Bonifaz and the Institute are leading the legal movement to identify new and compelling arguments in support of reform.