WhatFinger


Speech isn't free if politicians don't like it.

Liberals attack First Amendment in Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas and Idaho



The Wall Street Journal has lately been performing a real public service by chronicling the efforts of Wisconsin lawmakers, prosecutors and some judges to basically obliterate the First Amendment as it pertains to political speech. No one has passed a law saying you can be arrested for what you say. The usurpation of liberty never works like that. Rather, a complicated web of bureaucracies and legal authorities have established regulations in the name of "fairness" or "good goverment" or "transparency" or what-have-you.
The real-life impact is set traps for advocacy groups who aren't trying to do anything but speak and be heard, and in the process are liable to find themselves in trouble with the law because they failed to follow a Byzantine set of rules and restrictions established by the very politicians who don't want them speaking too effectively - or spending too much of their own money to advocate things that might not be in these politicians' best interests. The particular rules in play here concern "collaboration" between independent advocacy groups and political candidates. To a normal person, that's the simple exercise of your free-speech rights. To the political class, that's cause for a jailin':
It’s important to understand that this political attack on “coordination” is part of a larger liberal campaign. The Brennan Center—the George Soros-funded brains of the movement to restrict political speech—issued a report this month that urges regulators to police coordination between individuals and candidates as if it were a crime. The report raises alarms that independent expenditures have exploded since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, as if trying to influence elections isn’t normal in a democracy. The political left wants to treat independent expenditures as a “contribution” to candidates limited under campaign-finance law to $2,600 per election. That would essentially ban independent issue advocacy, since you can’t buy much air time for $2,600. Such regulation is also an assault on freedom of association. If like-minded people can’t pool resources to influence elections, they are essentially shut out of modern political debate. All the more so if citizens who do join together can be harassed by regulators or prosecutors. That’s clearly the intention of the Brennan speech enforcers, who survey state efforts to regulate speech and urge others to pick up the truncheon.

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By the way, lest you try to blame Gov. Scott Walker for this, be aware that his allies have been the fattest targets for Democrat prosecutors trying to use these regulations to control who can say what in Wisconsin. But Wisconsin is far from the only state where politicians are trying this gambit. IllinoisPolicy.org reports that politicians in their state are taking direct aim at the First Amendment, under the guise of limiting evil corporate spending on political races:
On Thursday, the Illinois Senate’s Executive Committee passed a resolution by a vote of 11-4 that calls for a constitutional convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The Citizens United decision simply held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from limiting anyone’s independent political speech. The court held that, although the government can place certain limits on campaign contributions, it cannot limit how much someone spends independently to speak (or write) about a candidate or political issues. And that makes perfect sense. If the right to free speech means anything, it must mean that you are free to speak as much as you want, as long as you’re spending your own money.

Incumbent officeholders would rather not face unlimited criticism

Incumbent officeholders don’t like that, though, because they would rather not face unlimited criticism. This sentiment is shared by party leaders on both sides of the aisle in Illinois. This week alone, Senate President John Cullerton co-sponsored the Senate resolution, while House Minority Leader Jim Durkin lashed out against independent groups and said they should face greater legal restrictions. It’s not surprising that Cullerton and Durkin in particular would feel that way. Along with House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, they are the only people in the state who are legally allowed to direct as much money as they want to the political campaigns of their choosing, through the political parties and “legislative caucus committees” they control. Everyone else in Illinois is limited in how much they can give by the campaign-contribution caps the General Assembly passed in 2009.
Meanwhile, as we told you yesterday, Christian pastors in C'oeur D'Aline, Idaho are being threatened with fines and jail time unless they agree to perform gay "weddings." Once again, no one is going to pass a law outlawing Christianity. They know they can't get away with that. Instead, they impose requirements - ostensibly in opposition to "discrimination" or whatever - that threaten you with sanctions if you run your business in a way that actually adheres to your faith. The impact is the same. You have freedom to practice religion in theory, but in reality you can only practice it to the extent that the state deems acceptable. And of course, in Houston, the city is attempting to subpoena the sermons of local pastors lest they find they criticized the lesbian mayor or a "human rights ordinance" the mayor favored. This is ostensibly about enforcing election laws in relation to churches' tax exemptions, but that's a crock. It's about outlawing speech politicians don't like. All of this is the inevitable result of a government that grows in scope and influence because a majority of the electorate expects it to solve every problem that ever existed, even if the problems only affect politicians.

If politicians don't like others spending money to criticize them, too bad

If politicians don't like others spending money to criticize them, too bad. If a Christian wedding chapel doesn't want to perform a gay "wedding," then the homosexuals need to go ask someone else. (And the same applies to bakers, florists, photographers, etc.) We don't need a system in which they react to such a rebuke by complaining to authorities. If pastors encourage people to vote in a certain way, then they do. No one needs to do anything about it. Of course, the tax code becomes an issue here. The tax code is so onerous that organizations like churches can't hope to survive unless they get an exemption, and applying for the exemption gives the IRS de facto control over how they operate. The solution is not to change the rules governing exemptions. It's to throw out the entire tax code and adopt a new, simple, non-oppressive one that doesn't require anyone to get an exemption. The bottom line is this: A government so big that it can provide you with everything puts you in a position where you need things from government, and then you're at the mercy of your provider to set rules you can live with. A government that thinks it's responsible for solving every problem will go ahead and "solve" the "problem" presented by your exercise of your rights. It used to be that liberals claimed to love the First Amendment, but that was before it threatened their power. People of faith especially threaten their power because we answer to a power higher than them, so they try to use their rule-making authority to bring us under control. If the First Amendment is a casualty, well, that was only valuable to them when it was useful to them. And when you think about it, the same is true of you.


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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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