A small victory
Seems the Incumbent Protection Act took a bit of hit. Seems four judges never heard of the first amendment. And three judges say the prior case is crap.
Good.
4 Responses to “A small victory”
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June 26th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Actually this idea that the regulation of camping funds or regulation of political advertising on broadcast mediums is in any way a 1st amendment issue seems to be self evident among many people. I disagree. For many reasons that are much too long to go into in a short blog comment I would point out that individual rights are just that, rights guaranteed to the individual. Not Groups, not cooperations, not unions, not lobbying groups, and not industry pacts. The first amendment guarantees individuals that the government will not infringe on the right of the individual to speak and say what they want without fearing that the government will prosecute them for doing so.
Money does not = speech because money does not in any way shape or form “buy speech” what it buys is an audience and unless you interpret the 1st amendment as a guarantee that your speech will get an audience then the whole money = speech notion falls apart.
Individuals speaking, using their own funds to speak (or buy advertising), should be outside government regulation (although SCOTUS currently says otherwise and no one seems to be real upset about that). Groups pooling their money or giving it to politicians is simply not what “free speech” is all about in my opinion. In my view, I am an individual, what I say on my soapbox is protected. When I start funding another person’s soap box, or when I form group to build a soap box, then it is fair game for regulation (to a degree). When I use the limited bandwidth of public communications infrastructure it is fair game for regulation. I can go door to door, stand on a soap box in the public square, print leaflets, post web pages and I can do all of these things with like minded friends with protection from the 1st amendment, but when I raise money to give to a candidate then it should not have unlimited protection and has nothing to do with the original intent of the 1st amendment.
Bottom line is I reject the argument that the 1st amendment was intended to give unlimited protection to money flowing to politicians for funding campaigns and any interpretation that does is clearly not what the founding fathers had in mind and it also seeks to protect a feature of modern political campings that is distroying the the political process and deteriorating political discourse.
If you really don;t want incumbents getting reelected at the current rate then fund political campings publically don’t expand protection for corporations lobby groups, unions and what have you. You got something to say, say it.
That is my take anyway, feel free to savage it if you will but please use the actual constitution to make your case rather then the twisted rulings of recent SCOTUS decisions (the same court BTW where current standing president says that the 2nd is a group right).
June 26th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Money does not equal speech. However, getting on the TeeVee and saying candidate X has a record and is a slimeball is. I don’t care if that message comes from you, evil big corporation, or some political group.
Rights are not guaranteed. Rights are protected from interference by the .gov. E.G., the constitution does not say ‘there’s a right to free speech’ it says ‘congress shall make no law.’
June 27th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
However, getting on the TeeVee and saying candidate X has a record and is a slimeball is.
No getting on TeeVee means that your speech will reach more people then me getting up on my soapbox will. There is the right to speak unfettered by the government which is constitutionally protected. There is no constitutional guarantee for groups. You can get on TeeVee and saying candidate X has a record and is a slimeball, no problem, its giving money to a canadidate that is at issue, not your right to speak.
Congress can make all the laws they want about funding political campaigns, they can’t make laws about individuals speaking on TV, on a soapbox or and thing else and that is what seems to be missing. I object to the whole notion that giving money to a politician has anything to do with an individual exercising there individual right to free speech.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:21 am
But this case was about buying airtime on TeeVee.