Speech is not free. Don’t even go there. I know you can speak your mind whenever, and on whatever subject you like with only certain, carefully crafted restrictions. It’s the First Amendment people!
But if you choose to be heard beyond the reach of your voice, or the nine people who read your brilliant blog or Facebook page, then it is gonna cost you.
FREE SPEECH IS AN OXYMORON
Speech is not free. Don’t even go there. I know you can speak your mind whenever, and on whatever subject you like with only certain, carefully crafted restrictions. It’s the First Amendment people!
But if you choose to be heard beyond the reach of your voice, or the nine people who read your brilliant blog or Facebook page, then it is gonna cost you.
Sure you could get yourself a gig writing oped’s for the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal and speak to millions. Lot’s of luck on that. And if only the bookers at FOX News or MSNBC had your phone number you could be a talking head.
As Ira Glasser, former director of the ACLU said “Nobody speaks effectively without money. If you limit how much you spend on speech you are limiting speech”. Absolutely true and some speech needs to be limited. This is a very libertarian and idealized position for there is not one right guaranteed to us by our constitution that has not been restricted in some way.
Are your words any less valuable than say those of Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers? Of course not, but by the simple fact of their wealth they can buy the space to be heard louder and more widely than you, a sort of huge megaphone. And what is wrong with that? Actually nothing. Go ahead, if you can afford it, and make your media buys. It is gonna cost you big time and the bigger the “megaphone” the higher the cost.
However, as it relates to political candidates, there have been restrictions in place as far back as 1867. Congress has felt the need to restrict freedom of speech as it relates to political candidates for over 100 years. But Congress historically danced around this issue and never really passed anything that would eliminate one of the core problems that plague our electoral process – the corrosive effect of money.
In 1972 the Federal Election Campaign Act was passed requiring candidates for federal office to disclose the sources of their contributions. This act was amended two years later introducing statutory limits on contributions and creating the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), thus restricting hard money (direct contributions) to individuals and Political Action Committees (PACs). In 1976, in Buckley vs. Valeo, the Supremes struck down certain FECA limitations as unconstitutionally violating free speech.
In 2002, acknowledging that all previous efforts were largely ineffective, easily circumvented and rarely enforced, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was passed (better know as McCain-Feingold). McCain-Feingold revised the legal limits set way back in 1924 and prohibited unregulated contributions or soft money (indirect contributions). It is noteworthy that George W. Bush signed this bill into law. A challenge made its way to the Court in 2003 (McConnell vs. FEC) and the law was upheld.
And then the infamous Supreme Court decision, Citizens United vs. FEC, on January 10, 2010, a day that will live in infamy. The ruling stipulated that the corporate funding of independent political broadcasts could not be limited pursuant to the free speech provisions of the First Amendment. Thus equating corporations with individuals in the realm of speech protections.
Justice Stevens wrote in his dissent “In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office”.
Corporations, or labor unions, are not people and deserving of the same protections. And before you roll out the canard that labor‘s contributions offset that of corporations, the disparity favors corporations on the order of 16:1.
In terms of bad law and harm to our national character, Citizens United stands second only to the odious Dred Scott decision in 1857 which declared that all blacks, slaves as well as free, were not and could never become citizens of the United States.
And here we are today awash under a virtual tsunami of money that is perverting and poisoning our political system.
Two major reasons why big money is a corrosive influence; it feeds the continuous process of fund raising, diverting the attention and energy of our public officials from governing and causing them to sell favors. “Dialing-for-dollars” or as one Senator said “The cruelty of perpetual campaigns”. Further, it alienates the average voter who is not able to rise to the level of a big donor and thus believes their votes don’t matter.
As it relates to the election of public officials it is not the spending per se but the consequence of it. Major contributors want something for their money and they invariably get it.
And the raising of the individual contribution limit in the recently passed budget bill further exacerbates this. Over a four-year election cycle the individual limit will be expanded to well over one million dollars.
What is the solution to this problem, the balancing of free speech with the corrosive effect of money in politics – simple, publicly fund all elections?