A leading indicator of a free nation? The lack of political prisoners. We Americans are aghast when we learn of dissenters jailed in other countries.
But, even in America, politicians in various states seek to put people in jail for engaging in legitimate (if dissenting) political activism.
I am one of their targets.
You may have heard that two other citizen activists and I are under the gun in Oklahoma. Allegedly, we defied the state’s residency requirements for people who circulate petitions.
The charge is false, as I explain at FreePaulJacob.com. But our glaring innocence didn’t prevent Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson from indicting us for supposedly defrauding the state.
Moreover, the Oklahoma law, imposed to thwart rather than foster the initiative process, is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has said as much regarding similar restrictions elsewhere.
And recently, in Ohio, a federal district court granted preliminary relief to plaintiffs who wanted to use out-of-state circulators, which Ohio legislators had outlawed.
The court endorsed the U.S. Supreme Court’s conclusion that since the demand that circulators be registered voters “decreas[es] the pool of potential circulators, the requirement imposed an unjustified burden on political expression. . . .”
That’s right. America still doesn’t jail dissenters who work peaceably to put issues on the ballot and people up for office.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.