quote:We have entered an era of constitutional censorship. Hardly anyone wants to admit this -- the legalized demolition of the First Amendment would seem shocking -- and so hardly anyone does. The evidence, though, abounds. The latest is the controversy over the anti-Kerry ads by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and parallel anti-Bush ads by Democratic "527" groups such as MoveOn.org. Let's assume (for argument's sake) that everything in these ads is untrue. Still, the United States' political tradition is that voters judge the truthfulness and relevance of campaign arguments. We haven't wanted our political speech filtered.
Now there's another possibility. The government may screen what voters see and hear. The Kerry campaign has asked the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to ban the Swift Boat ads; the Bush campaign similarly wants the FEC to suppress the pro-Democrat 527 groups. We've arrived at this juncture because it's logically impossible both to honor the First Amendment and to regulate campaign finance effectively. We can do one or the other -- but not both. Unfortunately, Congress and the Supreme Court won't admit the choice. The result is the worst of both worlds. We gut the First Amendment and don't effectively regulate campaign finance.
The First Amendment says that Congress "shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government" (that's "political association''). The campaign finance laws, the latest being McCain-Feingold, blatantly violate these prohibitions. The Supreme Court has tried to evade the contradiction. It has allowed limits on federal campaign contributions. It justifies the limits as preventing "corruption" or "the appearance of corruption." But the court has rejected limits on overall campaign spending by candidates, parties or groups. Limiting spending, the court says, would violate free speech. Spending enables candidates to reach voters through TV and other media.
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"The latest is the controversy over the anti-Kerry ads by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and parallel anti-Bush ads by Democratic '527' groups such as MoveOn.org."
Well, it's not exactly a parallel situation, is it? Kerry's group has accused the Swift Vets of being dishonest and has threatened them with slander suits; Bush's group, forced to admit the factual accuracy of the MoveOn ads, is merely questioning whether they constitute campaign advertising.
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The FEC has no authority over slander or dishonesty in ads, so any complaints by Kerrey to the FEC about the swiftboat ads is directly parallel. The larger point of the ad remains - we've abandoned the principles underlying the first amendment in the very arena it was intended to apply to most.
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Although I hold kind of the opposite view than yours, Tom I do agree with the article that any banning of any of these ads (or movies like Michael Moore's) would be a violation of free speech.
Let both sides say what they want -- but let the American public not be so stupid as to not do a little research themselves to make up their own mind.
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I woujld think that existing laws concerning slander would already cover political ads. If an ad seeks to defame you and is provably untrue, sue the bastards. We don't need more legislation about it.
I applaud the idea of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance laws, but even in their beginning I was bothered by the limitation on ads a month before an election, which to me seemed like a pretty blatent First Amendment restriction.
I favor removing all restrictions on campaign financing, but I insist that all contributions be made public and that contributors over a set amount be forever after considered "sponsors" to be mentioned whenever that politician's name appears in the news or advertisements. "In political news today, presidential candidate John Kerry, sponsored by Citigroup, declared his opposition to anything Enron-funded George W. Bush has ever said out loud."
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I like the idea of full disclosure laws. In fact, I'd ultimately like to see TV stations have to maintain logs, preferably web accesible, of every single thing they show, with links to the group financing it.
However, mandating disclosure of group membership has some very sticky constitutional issues raised by NAACP v. Alabama.
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Correct me if I am wrong, but campaign finance is very much open to public scrutiny right now, and it doesn't do anything that I can see to curb cronyism and patronism because you can't measure how much actual influence these things have. Plus, companies normally give to both parties these days, anyways. Sure, it's often more to one party than another, but still.
Also, if you want to get money out of politics, what about lobbyists?
To cap it all off, don't forget about gerrymandering. Want to correct one of the biggest evils in politics? Work on that, please. Because of gerrymandering, it almost doesn't matter who finances a politician because their districts are now so lopsided in terms of their constituency.
I am all for getting money out of politics so that there is more of a level playing field. However, I doubt it will ever happen. The major political and social groups in this country just benefit too much from it. Campaign finance reform would threaten their their power.
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quote:Correct me if I am wrong, but campaign finance is very much open to public scrutiny right now, and it doesn't do anything that I can see to curb cronyism and patronism because you can't measure how much actual influence these things have. Plus, companies normally give to both parties these days, anyways. Sure, it's often more to one party than another, but still.
Two things: First, donations given late in the election cycle are often not publicly available, at least easily, until after the election. Second, I care much more about free speech rights than I do about the cronyism. If the cronyism bothers voters, then public disclosure will provide the information needed to take it out on the parties.
quote:Also, if you want to get money out of politics, what about lobbyists?
I'm still at a loss as to why this would be a good thing. Money is needed for effective speech.
quote:To cap it all off, don't forget about gerrymandering. Want to correct one of the biggest evils in politics? Work on that, please. Because of gerrymandering, it almost doesn't matter who finances a politician because their districts are now so lopsided in terms of their constituency.
I agree, but it is possible to talk about one problem in politics without talking about all of them. Or do we need to bring up the problems of incumbent advantage, early primaries, two party entrenchment, and mid-term party-swapping.
quote:I am all for getting money out of politics so that there is more of a level playing field. However, I doubt it will ever happen. The major political and social groups in this country just benefit too much from it. Campaign finance reform would threaten their their power.
We put up with a lot of crap in the name of free speech; I fail to see any compelling case being made that allowing people to spend their own money on political activism is a greater evil than censorship.
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I do agree with the article that any banning of any of these ads (or movies like Michael Moore's) would be a violation of free speech.
