Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. �The big topic of discussion in the Senate last week and through this week is Campaign Finance Reform. What is there about this issue that could possibly be discussed and debated for 2 weeks! Anyone who can read and has a copy of the Constitution of the United States of America knows that Congress has absolutely no authority...no...that's not phrasing it right...Congress is specifically FORBIDDEN from making any law that abridges the right of freedom of speech to any of the citizens of this country. The result of campaign finance reform (especially as put forth in McCain-Feingold) is to keep individual citizens from being able to communicate their political views to the American public. At this point I think anyone who really desires to follow the Constitution has to concede that the Senate and the rest of Congress are out of line with the law of the land on this issue.�
The flawed idea that congress should be restricting the right of Americans to use their resources for the purpose of political speech is derived from the Supreme Court Case Buckley v. Valeo where the court upheld legislated restrictions on the amount of money citizens were allowed to contribute to candidates, political parties and political committees. The court argued that it was ok for this money to be regulated by congress for the purpose of preventing the appearance of corruption.�However, the court in the same case ruled that it was inappropriate for Congress to place any limits on the amount of money a candidate was allowed to spend on his own campaign. That these two parts of the decision are contradictory seems clear. How is it possible that someone's money expended in a campaign is protected speech when they are spending those funds for their own campaign but when they are spending that money in support of someone else's candidacy their speech is not protected? Buckley v. Valeo also states that citizens are allowed to spend their resources to communicate on issues without fear of being regulated by Congress but would fall under the regulation of congress when those resources are used to communicate for or against a specific candidate. This case was a mess and it clearly wasn't constitutional!�
The only exceptions to the constitutional prohibition against congressional restriction of free speech are when public safety is at stake (e.g. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater). Public safety isn't at stake when citizens use their funds either collectively or individually to support a candidate they agree with. This is part of the political process and is exactly what the writers of our Bill of Rights intended to protect. Those who make the claim that congress needs to limit the extent to which people may contribute to the political process in any way are working directly against the spirit and letter of the highest law of the land.�
Rather than work to further promote the wrong-headed idea that congress should regulate free speech, we as Americans should be pushing our leaders in Washington to tear down the regulatory prison they have constructed for Americans who want to participate freely in political campaigns. We should be free to spend as much money as we want in trying to get those we agree with elected to office, and if someone running for office does provide legislative favors in return for money (quid pro quo) they should be prosecuted under the existing constitutional statutes forbidding bribery.�
Last election one campaign contacted donors to find out if any of them would be willing to deliberately break the law and donate more than they were legally allowed. They were hoping to bring this issue to the fore so a new trial could be held that could possibly overturn the mess that was created by current campaign finance law and the decision in Buckley v. Valeo. Oh if only I were wealthy enough that I could consider helping. :-)
By Jeremy Manning�
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