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Today in Not The Onion
The Supreme Court rules that allowing poor candidates the ability to respond to rich ones violates the latter’s First Amendment rights. Chief Justice Roberts: “All else being equal, an advertisement supporting the election of a candidate that goes without a response is often more effective than an advertisement that is directly controverted.” Can’t argue with that logic!
13 Responses to “Today in Not The Onion”
You said it much more succinctly than I, David.
I am agog. I know I should stop being shocked at the absolute joke that is now the supreme court, but almost every day I become more and more baffled.
I am no legal scholar but this decision seems pretty weird.
speech is free and protected for all.
volume, however, is protected for only those who have money.
the logic of any political argument is now usurped by the volume of the voice amplified by private bucks.
this is exactly what the fore-fathers had in mind, right?
I’ll just wait for the usual Robert’s Court apologists to come up with some nonsense or other… I could use a laugh.
It seems to me that the conservative majority on the Court was concerned that passage of laws like this would dilute some of the effect of the recent Citizens Decision. Obviously, in their minds reducing the power of money and corporations in the public sphere would be akin to socialism. G-d forbid that the “unwashed” little people have a voice.
So answer me this: why should the government fund any candidacy at all?
I’ve had a problem with public funding of elections ever since I first saw that $3 checkbox on an IRS form. What business is it of the government’s to fund candidate elections? Now you have government deciding who is a valid candidate and who is not? What business is it of the government’s to “level the playing field”?
I see this as such a HUGE conflict of interest, and as such it should be banned outright.
Now, the bad ruling of the Supreme Court that really killed free & fair elections is Citizens United….
Well, I see their point:
But it still seems very outcome-centric reasoning, as if their brains had been taken over by progressives. The constitutional right to speak doesn’t imply a right to be heard above the speech of others.
Doc, it’s appropriate to remember the Constitutional protections are sourced more in the philosophy of protecting the general abridgment of freedoms than the particular ” granting of rights”.
A citizen should generally be free to spend money to speak in whatever quantity he wishes. For the government to come along and say, ” this guy doesn’t have the money you do, so we’re going to give him more money if you spend more than X and then even more money if you spend in excess of Y.
If it is in my personal interest to outspeak my political opponent ( seems logical enough to assume ), then the government is abridging my opportunity to outspeak my opponent. By doing so, there is an effective act of limiting my speech extraneous to my own capability to speak.
No doubt unfair in the JSpencer ” all kids should always have the same amount of marbles to play with” world, but nonetheless, respectful of the fact the Constitution protects individual freedoms, not levels playing fields for the less successful.
I’m not a fan of the Arizona law, but I don’t find grounds to strike it down in the first amendment. The letter of it covers speaking, not outspeaking. And the spirit of it is about keeping a diversity of opinions in the air, to keep tyrants from stifling dissent. I don’t see the Arizona law threatening diversity.
The problem with all of the recent campaign regualtions is that they are all designed to elect more liberal Democrats. Giving state money to community activist, allowing voter fraud, liming the influence of the private sector are all designed.
Maybe smart legal minds should be asking why the government should be allowed any influence over the election process. There is massive conflict of influence to allow incumbent politicains to design and pass campaign finance laws since the laws are always designed to protect incumbent liberal Democrats.
It seems to me that the conservative majority on the Court was concerned that passage of laws like this would dilute some of the effect of the recent Citizens Decision. Obviously, in their minds reducing the power of money and corporations in the public sphere would be akin to socialism. G-d forbid that the “unwashed” little people have a voice.
I’ll just wait for the usual Robert’s Court apologists to come up with some nonsense or other… I could use a laugh.
Certainly didn’t take long