[EL] "We the People" as "CEO"

[Volokh, Eugene]

                I'm puzzled by the CEO analogy.  If I want to send messages to a CEO, the CEO generally doesn't have the right to use legal coercion to require that I sign my name to the messages, or otherwise disclose my identity.  Under some circumstances, the CEO could subpoena such information, but he'd have to show (at least) that my identity is relevant to some legal claim he might have against someone, which would rarely be the case.  It is indeed the case that "the CEO of a company has no right to know who is speaking to them," if by "right" we mean the power to use legal coercion to demand that the speaker's identity be revealed.

                The same is true even if I were an employee sending messages to the CEO.  The CEO might examine the company's own property to try to identify me, but again he couldn't use legal coercion to get such information.  And beyond that, I'd like to think that American citizens are generally not "employees" of either the governmenr or of "We the People."

                Now this doesn't resolve the question whether anonymous statements - whether about elections, or about other subjects that might well be highly relevant to elections - should or should not be prohibited in certain contexts, whether the speech is of "fat cats" or others who spend their money to express their views.  I just don't see how the CEO analogy is at all helpful here.

                Eugene

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Lehto
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 12:58 PM
To: Steve Hoersting
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Informational benefit outweighed by cost?

Arguing that the disclosure of speaker identities is "too  high a cost on speech rights" is just like arguing that the CEO of a company has no right to know who is speaking to them because such knowledge might pose "too high a cost on speech rights for too little" information.

"We the People" are the "CEO" of this country, specifically in connection with elections and voting.  It's absurd to think that a sovereign king, CEO or electorate has no right to know who it is that is speaking to them.  All sovereigns do (or else they are not really sovereigns).  No one can claim a right to use the sovereign's own courts to compel some right to anonymously talk into the ear of the sovereign.  (If they succeed, then the People are not really sovereign in connection with elections).

The so-called right of anonymity is not so absurd, and becomes far more arguable, outside the context of elections where sovereignty isn't in play.  The right of anonymity in elections is a de facto coup d'etat attempt against democracy because it defeats obvious rights of sovereignty.

With anonymity, political-funding fat cats get to talk, but nobody can "talk back" to them, because We don't know who they are.  One can infer the existence of strings, but isn't allowed to see the puppeteer. No CEO or king would stand for that, so why should We the People have to put up with it?

Paul Lehto, J.D.
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 2:45 PM, Steve Hoersting <hoersting at gmail.com<mailto:hoersting at gmail.com>> wrote:
Kim Strassel has another piece in today's WSJ intimating that the compelled disclosure of independent, non-corrupting speech poses too high a cost on speech rights for too little benefit in voter information -- especially absent a meaningful exemption available not just to Vandersloot, for whom it is too late, but to other would-be funders noticing this treatment, and eager to seek an exemption as John Doe or Jane Doe.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070304577396412560038208.html

--
Stephen M. Hoersting

_______________________________________________
Law-election mailing list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election



--
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box 1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com<mailto:lehto.paul at gmail.com>
906-204-4026 (cell)





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20120511/c9c140f8/attachment.html>