Unlawful election funding provision will stay in force

When a judge believes a practice is unconstitutional, is it proper to allow that practice to continue?
 
The right answer is no, yet that is what U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver of Phoenix is doing in regard to Arizona public financing system for election campaigns. She has not yet explained her reasoning, but may do so by the end of the week.
 
In Arizona, under a decade-old law, candidates can either choose to fund their campaigns through the traditional private donation method or they can instead choose to accept public funding to run for office.
 
There is a provision in the law, however, that hobbles the ability of privately-funded candidates to use their donations as a campaign advantage. Public-funded candidates are given a set amount for their campaigns, while private ones can raise and spend as much as they want - which theoretically should give private candidates an advantage.
 
Supporters of the public financing of campaigns didn't like this, so they put in a stipulation that if a private candidate spends more than the public candidates, then public candidates get more money - up to three times the base established for these candidates.
 
The U.S. Supreme Court recently said that "leveling the playing field" between public and private candidates is unconstitutional because it violates the free speech of the privately-funded candidate by giving his opponent an unfair advantage with the government's help.
 
Since Arizona's "clean elections" laws does what the high court has already said is unconstitutional, it is hardly surprising that Judge Silver ruled preliminarily in September that it too is unconstitutional. Yet she confirmed Tuesday a decision to let the unfair and unlawful funding continue during the current election.
 
She has indicated she wants to let it alone until the case can be argued before her, perhaps sometime next year.
 
Some supporters of "clean elections" have expressed concern about public candidates being unfairly impacted in the November election by removal of the matching funding. Well, what about the private candidates who the Supreme Court has already ruled are being unfairly impacted?
 
This decision by the judge makes no sense. It is clear this matching provision is unlawful - even Judge Silver says so. Yet she says she will let the law continue to be broken. That is a strange way to enforce justice.