[EL] When Capitalists Need Socialist Workers

[Benjamin Barr]

Thank you, Brad.

I just hope the FEC might catch up with the constitutional developments
around it so less litigation is needed to protect the basic civil liberties
of Americans.

It is an unfortunate occurrence that some commissioners view each loss the
agency suffers in radical isolation and fail to incorporate significant
constitutional lessons moving forward.  Under the Equal Access to Justice
Act (EAJA), we could only prevail on attorneys' fees if the government's
position was not "substantially justified."  As the DC District Court
rightly noted in Carey, the nation's premiere expert in election law could
hardly pass the blush test to explain why it forbade a small veterans group
from speaking.  All this was the result of three commissioners. Much the
same is occurring right now in a little case called Free Speech v. FEC.

Thus, the greater body of campaign finance precedent, including Citizens
United, is one evincing a shrinking and confining approach to the
extra-constitutional bounds of election law (with a corresponding
maximizing effect for individual liberty).  And much like in the wake of
Brown v. Board of Education, there are plenty who disagree fervently with
the Court's protection of individual liberty.  Those of us who believe in
the truths further reiterated in Citizens United must ensure that
resistance and subterfuge by speech commissions nationwide are brought to
their rightful end...again, and again, and again until our nation's
experiments with speech suppression become best known as a relic of our
darker days.

Count me in for those battles.

Forward,

First Amendment Ben


On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 10:36 AM, Smith, Brad <BSmith at law.capital.edu>wrote:

>  By the way, congratulations to Steve and his partner at DB Capital
> Strategies, Dan Backer, to Ben Barr, and to Allen Dickerson of the Center
> for Competitive Politics, who were just awarded over $120,000 in attorney's
> fees from the FEC for their work in National Defense PAC v. Carey. The
> Court noted, "the FEC is supposed to be an expert on federal election law
> and its attorneys are required to know the current status of election law,
> especially Supreme Court and Circuit law.”
>
>  It is also worth noting that when the NDPAC filed an advisory opinion
> request with the FEC, the 3 Republicans would have given the green light -
> the 3 Democrats did not, so NDPAC had to sue, leading to this result. I
> note this only because of the regular efforts by some to blame FEC
> "gridlock" on the Republican commissioners and their supposed refusal to
> "enforce the law." In this case, as in many others, it appears they were
> ones getting things right.
>
>  *Bradley A. Smith*
>
> *Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault*
>
> *   Professor of Law*
>
> *Capital University Law School*
>
> *303 E. Broad St.*
>
> *Columbus, OH 43215*
>
> *614.236.6317*
>
> *http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx*
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Steve
> Hoersting [hoersting at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Friday, July 20, 2012 9:39 AM
> *To:* law-election at uci.edu
> *Subject:* [EL] When Capitalists Need Socialist Workers
>
>  Kim Strassel's latest:
>
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577537233908744496.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
>
> And it's applicability to election law:
>
> http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/266623
>
> Kim asks this question at the end: "As for Mr. VanderSloot, to what
> authority should he appeal if he believes this to be politically
> motivated—given the Justice Department on down is also controlled by the
> man who targeted him?"
>
> The answer, for Mr. VanderSloot, is, realistically and unfortunately, "to
> no authority; none."
>
> But for those businessmen who are yet safely anonymous, and understand
> speaking in the political process is their only remedy against economic
> deprivations from an unchecked IPAB or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
> sure to come, the authority to which they should appeal is the district
> court.
>
> Businessmen who don't want to be the "next" Frank VanderSloot should file
> in district court as John Does to seek the *Socialist Workers* exemption
> to compelled disclosure of their partial funding of independent political
> speech.
>
> --
> Stephen M. Hoersting
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
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