Of course it isn’t.
But spending money on speech is a right, just as the speech is.
Question for you: would you say that the government has the power to ban all spending on religion - the sale of bibles or other religious texts, church construction, etc. - because money isn’t religion?
Would you also say that the government has the power to ban you from buying pen and paper, or a bumper sticker, or a yard sign, or whatever?
More of my favorite examples of money being part of a right:
The government could not ban the paying of an attorney to represent you in court.
The government could not ban you from paying a doctor for an abortion, given Roe v. Wade (and this is an example of something that some states might try someday - the anti-abortion states are always trying clever ways to get around Roe, and the pro-choice people always cry fowl).
The government could not ban the rental of buses to transport people to a protest in Washington DC.
Etc.
But the government does have an interest in preventing bribery. As a federal employee I’m not allowed to accept a $30 bottle of wine as a thank you gift for chairing a session at an academic conference, because it might influence me in some way. Even though I have no influence in anything and the conference organizers have no agenda.
But if I was president, than I could accept $10,000,000 in attack ads against my opponent from a corporation that I regulate and no one would bat an eye. Maybe its just me, but I think this is a big problem.
The people have the right to determine which speech enters their living room.
No they don’t.
If that were true, any and all political speech on television, including news coverage, would be subject to total censorship by the government. That’s absurd, of course.
The government has the power to regulate commercial speech, like tobacco ads. But not political speech.
The people do have a right to determine what they see on their TV…by turning it off or changing the channel when they don’t like the political content. Kind of like when I turn off Fox News all the time.
Hey, look at me - a voter using his brain to decide what to listen to or what to believe without the help of the government!
Sure. Bribery is already illegal.
Right. But if someone wrote a letter to the editor praising you for the good work you did, would that be bribery too?
No, you can’t “accept” ads that someone else runs, any more than you can reject them. The corporation is running them whether you want it or not.
The idea that speech can be bribery is ridiculous. By that standard, anything anyone says good about a politician, even without spending money on it, could be considered a bribe. What about endorsements? If a prominent person endorses a candidate, is that bribery? He might even get something in return!
Nevertheless, you can’t define speech as bribery because it’s protected by the Constitution. That setttles it.
Only to the extent that money spent by another on my behalf doesn’t count as bribery. If stomping on puppies wasn’t counted as animal abuse, then you could say that we didn’t need to regulate puppy stomping because we already had laws against animal abuse.
Actually If they spent more than $25.00 to get the letter published, and I was in some way associated with the regulation of that company I would have to check with the ethics office, and may have to recuse myself from their case, as there might be the appearance of a conflict of interest. Whether an actual conflict exists is irrelevant according to federal employee guide lines.
The super PAC is run by your former campaign manager, and he just happens to run ads in districts that you mention that you could use support in and which spout exactly the taking point you are trying to get out. But of course it is completely independent of your campaign, so it has nothing to do with you.
I can’t believe that you don’t see that someone spending $10,000,000 to assist a politicians campaign would lead to that politician writing legislation in that parties favor. There might be some Mr. Smith types who wouldn’t be influenced, but they would quickly find that their money suddenly dried up. Heck, there are companies that donate to both sides of a campaign. Do you think they do that because they want both candidates to get elected? No, they are just hedging their bets with the understanding to whomever wins will support them, because the alternative is that all of the money goes to the opponent in the next round.
This is apparently what the supreme court said, in which case it’s democracy to the highest bidder. But given the fact that we do make some accommodation to the public good in our interpretation to free speech laws, (noise ordinances etc.) we should be able to have a nuanced campaign law that allows all views to be heard without the corruption that inevitably follows from unlimited spending.
But the idea that speech can be bribery is not only ridiculous by itself, it means that all speech would have to be considered bribery, and therefore banned.
But the government couldn’t ban him from publishing the letter, or spending the $25 to do it.
That’s a different issue though. which I addressed.
There are many ways to get a legislator to write legislation in your favor. Most are perfectly legal. The fact that you might influence a legislator is not, in itself, a reason to declare an act illegal. We’re supposed to influence them.
But they also might find that the voters like them for it. Voters, remember them?
Hmmm. Is that illegal?
Stop the hyperbole please.
No, widespread and blatant banning of political speech is not justified by noise ordinances.
You, as president, have no control of what opinions other people (either as individuals, or as groups of individuals) can express. You are not “accepting” the ads any more than you are “accepting” an ad for McDonald’s. You, as government employee, can decline to accept the wine. As president, you can’t “decline” the ads. That would be censorship.
In 2008, Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr rejected all donations from known racist organizations. Does this mean that he censored those groups? Many (unsuccessfully) called upon Ron Paul to do the same, four years ago and this past election cycle. Would it have been censorship if he had?
They are not Presidents but they are vying for that office, So I fail to see a distinction since we are discussing campaign contributions for advertising as speech.
That would have been a very novel idea for Ron Paul defending himself, incidentally… That he didn’t want to censor their free speech. :rolleyes:
It is fascinating, how stubborn this refusal is to acknowledge that campaign contributions and political ads are not the same thing, in general, but especially as CU is concerned. It’s tilting at windmills, apparently, so I won’t attempt to explain again.
If Ron Paul were president, and he tried to silence the ads, it would be censorship. Since he’s not the president, and has no policing authority, he can’t censor.
So a contribution that goes towards a political ad (i.e. to a Super PAC) could not be rejected or that is a repudiation of free speech?
What if the candidate is a sitting Senator or Congressperson?
While a Congresscritter can be intimidating, he can’t call out the FBI or the National Guard. The Executive branch has direct control over policing powers. That was the point I was trying to make, and why I put “” around the word decline. That would be decline as in: Do it, and I’ll arrest you. If all he does is say: Please don’t do it, then no big deal. It’s when he attempts to use his powers of office to “decline” as an analogy to the wine gift. I can refuse to accept the wine. But a president can’t refuse to accept an ad from an independent group in the same way you can refuse to accept a gift of a bottle of wine.
Rejected by whom? Do you know how a Super PAC works? It’s independent of any candidate by definition. That is not to say they don’t benefit a given candidate. But no candidate has any authority over a Super PAC.
And that’s not what you cited. You cited someone supposedly rejecting campaign contributions from racist sources. Any candidate is free to do that, and there’s no First Amendment issue.
“I like Buck Godot. He’s a nice guy.”
There, I made a contribution to you, Buck. You’re welcome. I hope you accept it, but if you don’t, please send me a check reimbursing me.
They can penalise expenditures on bribery though.
Given that the majority of campaign funding relates to electioneering communications, can you give a good reason why there are campaign funding limitations?
This isn’t even remotely bribery.
This isn’t about campaign funding. It’s about SPENDING money on speech - and there are no limits on that, as you know from Buckley.
Joe Montana has no chance of influencing the Supreme Court.