[EL] Civic Courage, Indeed

[Steve Klein]

*Shel Adelson effectively purchased the Republican Primary for Newt
Gingrich in South Carolina by giving him a $5 million megaphone to "speak"
with. *

And how did that work out in the long run?

*We limit speech rights all the time. *

I believe most restrictions on time / manner / place have articulable
interests behind them. The nebulousness of the "corruption" interest
(evidenced in this thread) is second only to the baffling "informational"
interest, and both support regimes that threaten to choke everyone who
can't pay compliance fees to accountants and attorneys in red
tape. (Nebulous interests, meet nebulous laws.) These laws are not making
the political process any cleaner, but simply more exclusive-- far more
than Adelson's money, I might add.

Be it the DeLay witch
hunt<http://wyliberty.org/feature/wyliberty-arguments-prevail-in-important-free-speech-case/>,
IRS inquisitions<http://wyliberty.org/feature/cmon-its-just-disclosure-irs-edition/>,
retaliation by elections
commissions<http://wyliberty.org/feature/another-chilling-step-in-campaign-finance-disclosure/>,
and now pre-dawn raids on political groups, whether you care or not these
governmental abridgements have the benefit of being articulable. Platitudes
may blot out the sun in these battles, but I, for one, will continue to
fight in the shade.



On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 11:09 AM, Salvador Peralta <
oregon.properties at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I don't think that candidates should be cloistered monks, but I also don't
> feel any particular need to buy into the fiction that a pac funded by
> billionaire allies of the candidate, run by close allies of a candidate,
> outspending that candidate in key races in a fashion that to all outward
> appearances seems clearly coordinated, can never be corrupting.
>
> We limit speech rights all the time.  Many of the strongest opponents of
> limiting money as speech have demonstrated that they have no problem with
> limiting political speech when it involves actual speech (e.g., time and
> place restrictions such as free speech ghettos), but those same people
> often develop a near-terminal case of the vapors at the prospect that
> anyone would want to keep billionaires from buying elections on behalf of
> the candidates they support.
>
> Shel Adelson effectively purchased the Republican Primary for Newt
> Gingrich in South Carolina by giving him a $5 million megaphone to "speak"
> with.  That's 1000x more than he could give directly to Gingrich, yet the
> public is supposed to passively accept the notion that this was wholly
> uncoordinated while folks like yourself try and make the argument that such
> acts could never, ever, possibly be corrupting if it doesn't involve an
> outright "quid pro quo" transaction?
>
>  ------------------------------
>  *From:* Jon Roland <jon.roland at constitution.org>
> *To:* law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 21, 2013 8:52 AM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Civic Courage, Indeed
>
> This discussion is becoming ridiculous. The reforms sought by some here
> would mean the only way campaign spending can avoid an "appearance" of
> corruption is if the candidate is some kind of cloistered monk isolated
> from family, friends, and supporters, who does nothing to get elected other
> than consenting to be a candidate and then keeps quiet until he is elected.
>
> -- Jon
>
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-- 
Steve Klein
Staff Attorney & Research Counsel*
Wyoming Liberty Group
www.wyliberty.org

**Licensed to practice law in Illinois. Counsel to the Wyoming Liberty
Group pursuant to Rule 5.5(d) of the Wyoming Rules of Professional Conduct.*
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