Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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 Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:07 am Post subject: Campaign Finance Reform’s War on Political Freedom |
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Bradley A. Smith, a former FEC commissioner, with another well-written and enlightening expose on the ominous and growing threat to our freedom of speech.
Scary stuff.
| Quote: | Bradley A. Smith
Campaign Finance Reform’s War on Political Freedom
An ongoing danger, despite two recent court victories
1 July 2007
In February 2006, Norm Feck learned that the city of Parker, Colorado was thinking about annexing his neighborhood, Parker North. Feck attended a meeting on the annexation, realized that it would mean more bureaucracy, and concluded that it wouldn’t be in Parker North residents’ interest. Together with five other Parker North locals, he wrote letters to the editor, handed out information sheets, formed an Internet discussion group, and printed up anti-annexation yard signs, which soon began sprouting throughout the neighborhood.
That’s when annexation supporters took action—not with their own public campaign, but with a legal complaint against Feck and his friends for violating Colorado’s campaign finance laws. The suit also threatened anyone who had contacted Feck’s group about the annexation, or put up one of their yard signs, with “investigation, scrutinization, and sanctions for Campaign Finance violations.” Apparently the anti-annexation activists hadn’t registered with the state, or filled out the required paperwork disclosing their expenditures on time. Steep fines, increasing on a daily basis, were possible. The case remains in litigation.
Should Americans care about what’s happening in Parker North? They certainly don’t seem to.
<snip>
“I have come to doubt that the masses of the people have sense enough to govern themselves,” wrote Ben Tillman, the founder of federal campaign finance reform, in 1916. Eighty years later, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt famously described the battle over campaign finance reform as “two important values in direct conflict: freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy. You can’t have both.”
Many a tax- and regulation-prone politician, stymied by real political debate, would agree with both men. But Norm Feck and his Parker North neighbors, Washington deejays Carlson and Wilbur, the Texas dentist facing $30,000 in fines, and tens of thousands of NASCAR fans realize that free speech is not a bar to healthy democracy but a cornerstone of it. It’s imperative that we speak up to defend freedom of speech—before that very speaking up becomes impossible.
City Journal - cont'd |
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