Tag: free speech

Categories
First Amendment rights

No More Speech Rationing

Advocates of campaign finance regulation, what George Will calls “speech rationing,” say letting corporations — including non-​profit corporations — spend unlimited money on political speech corrupts democracy.

Actually, muzzling speech is what corrupts democracy and the point of it: i.e., to protect our freedoms, including freedom of speech.

Protecting these freedoms is a vital political good, even if some speech is deplorable. 

The recent Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. FEC, dramatically strikes down unconstitutional limits on electioneering by businesses and non-​profits. But it leaves intact unconstitutional limits on their direct contributions to campaigns.

It also doesn’t touch requirements forcing campaign donors to disclose personal information. In his partial dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas pointed to how California donors giving more than $100 must reveal their names and addresses, info then publicized on the Internet. Supporters of a recent controversial ballot proposition were subjected to intimidation and property damage as a result.

The disclosure laws have spawned what Justice Thomas calls “a cottage industry that uses forcibly disclosed donor information to pre-​empt citizens’ exercise of their First Amendment rights.” 

Thomas is right. And campaign finance regulation should be tossed out root and branch.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights too much government

The First Casualty of Health Care Reform

The first casualty of war is truth. The first casualty of health care reform? Free speech. 

While most health care insurers have gone along with reform proposals, even helping write the bills, a few insurance companies fall outside the insiders’ perimeter, fearful of more regulation. The regulatory environment is already oppressive, after all — though, for the insurance industry these regs come mainly from the states.

So, we now learn, at least one medical insurance provider, Humana, sent out a special letter to policyholders who also participate in the Medicare Advantage program, advising them of what the effects of new reforms on their coverage would likely be. 

What happened next?

If you guessed “gag order,” you got it.

After Humana’s expression of First Amendment rights, the Department of Health and Human Services told all insurers participating in Medicare Advantage to zip it, stifle themselves, express their thoughts in no way about any proposed reform to their policyholders — even if all such expression amounts to is a list of facts. 

Penalties include both fines and jail time.

Yes, folks, this is what unlimited government means. Increase government’s role and “hasta la vista” to some very basic freedoms. 

Just as government micromanagement of markets leads to shortages and rising prices, so increased government has predictable consequences. We pay for big government in lost freedom as well as dollars.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights national politics & policies

Stop Us Before We Kill Free Speech Again

The Supreme Court has yet another chance to refer to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And follow it.

The case before the court, Citizens United versus FEC, has to do with how federal campaign finance laws and the regulations issued by the Federal Election Commission are violating freedom of speech.

Citizens United is a conservative non-​profit organization that produced a documentary critical of Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign last year. A D.C. court ruled that producing it with the help of corporate funding was a violation campaign finance law, specifically the McCain-​Feingold Act.

Eight former FEC commissioners have now filed an amicus brief in the case. They argue that the lower court’s decision violates the First Amendment — you know, the part about not making any law to abridge freedom of speech. One of the former commissioners, Hans von Spakovsky, explains in the Wall Street Journal that it is virtually impossible to know under the convoluted regulations exactly when one is allowed to engage in political speech and when one must shut up. Why not just let everyone exercise his First Amendment rights?

Spakovsky concludes that friends of campaign finance restrictions on speech have “lost sight of a basic truth: The answer to speech they disagree with is not to restrict that speech, but to answer it with more speech.”

That’s just — and this is — Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights

Florida Anti-​Speech Tyranny

The Broward Coalition of Condominiums, Homeowners Associations and Community Organizations, Inc., regularly puts out newsletters. No surprise. Lots of organizations do.

This Florida organization, though, does something more. Its newsletters regularly feature political subjects. Nothing shocking about that, either. This is America, right?

Well, yes. But the First Amendment has been abridged. In Florida, especially, there exist onerous “electioneering communications” laws that squelch the kind of speech that the Broward Coalition engages in.

Florida law requires any group of people to register with the government if the group mentions a candidate or ballot issue in any media — electronic, paper, or plastic — and to report all of its spending and funding sources, too.

That kind of oppressive control is what started the American Revolution. Fortunately, we have a less violent way of opposing speech tyranny today.

The Broward Coalition has joined with the National Taxpayers Union and the University of Florida College Libertarians to file suit. Represented by the Institute for Justice, they charge that the law regulating their speech goes against the First Amendment.

Bert Gall, IJ senior attorney, puts it exactly right when he insists that “Florida’s law is part of a growing trend of shutting up and shutting out anyone but political pros from politics.”

And that trend must be stopped.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.