Let people speak
Mike McGowan writes today about campaign finance laws and how they limit free speech.
As I understand the way these laws work — and someone correct me if I am wrong — it would be legal for a show like The West Wing to run a full-hour episode that had as the major theme the evils of gun ownership. The show could present people who support gun rights as nuts, could present the politicians trying to enact gun control as heroes, could dramatize horrible results of gun violence and show little Suzie’s funeral, which the fictional President attends, and on and on.
The West Wing (I know, it isn’t on the air anymore — this is just a hypothetical example) could do all of this the night before a major election or a referendum on a gun control law, could do so with the intent or result of influencing the outcome of the vote. The campaign finance laws do not interfere with the free speech rights of The West Wing’s writers or the TV network, as long as they are subtle enough to not mention candidates by name. Art is protected, after all.
Yet it would be illegal for the NRA, or any group of citizens, to buy a 30-second advertisement on that very episode to make the opposite points on the eve of the election.
Newspapers, television networks, and radio stations can all publish and air op-ed pieces on their pages and news programs and can dramatize the same points on their entertainment programs, advocating for certain policies and attitudes and, on the news talk programs and op-ed pages, even for specific candidates, right up to the election. But advertisers cannot do so in the very same venues on the very same days.
Newspapers, television stations, and radio stations are corporations. They are only able to reach their massive audiences through the spending of money. The money spent to produce an episode of The West Wing for the purpose of expressing a political opinion is no different from the money spent by an interest group to express a political opinion. Money is money. Yet the laws continue to allow The West Wing to try to influence opinions up to the moment of an election while preventing others — whether corporations or interest groups made up of millions of private citizens — from spending their money to communicate a political opinion.
The laws do so on the basis that money isn’t equal to speech. Advocates of the laws say that people can still speak, but can’t buy advertisements. Because money is bad for politics. Or something. But money is speech, or the ability to disseminate it, and if it is money that enables an interest group to get out its message the day before an election, it is also money that enables an episode of The West Wing to air the day before an election, and it is also money that enables the New York Times to publish and distribute a paper that endorses candidates.
Allowing entrenched and approved media to disseminate speech and not allowing citizens, interest groups, and corporations to do the same clearly creates a two-tiered system and allows those with access to the public, because they own media outlets or television programs or are politicians or famous celebrities, to continue to influence opinion up to the moment of an election, while stifling the efforts of others to try to reach people with their own political messages. It’s part of why so many newspapers and mainstream media outlets advocate the laws.
Many of them favor the laws ostensibly because they want “money out of politics,” as if such a thing were possible, but of course they don’t mean the money that they spend using their media outlets trying to influence political results. That’s not money, they might say — it’s speech, a free press. Only the money that other people want to spend to try to influence political results is money, and not speech. They don’t mention that their institutions benefit from the laws, since their own political influence is strengthened in comparison to everyone else who is restricted from communicating political opinions.
Regardless of the motives of those who support these laws, no matter how genuine some might be in their innocent and hopeless desire to get money out of politics, all of this is a clear violation of the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech” is not that confusing (and my ellipses do not obscure the issue — I simply skipped the religion establishment clause that is not relevant to this discussion). The laws abridge the freedom of speech. Unconstitutional. Not complicated.
Let people speak. If those people are in a union, let them speak. If those people band together in an interest group, to try to persuade others to keep guns legal or to outlaw guns, and they pool their resources in order to reach a larger audience, let them speak. If those people are owners of a corporation, which is made up of thousands or millions of shareholders (also called “people”), let them speak. Let people speak up until the moment of the election. Let them reach as many other people with their messages as they can. Let them compete for the support of donors and spend their money how they choose and buy advertising space wherever someone is willing to sell it. Let people speak. And trust that the people listening are no dumber than you are — they can sort through the messages and make their own decisions.
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What an awesome read! Good stuff. I, for one, didn’t see any factual errors in the piece.
Like I said, they wouldn’t let Citizens United advertise their movie, but “W.” was in the Box Office Top Ten the weekend before the election, and advertisements for that movie were running on TV. Why is it ok for Hollywood to develop political blockbusters and run them during elections, but not an independent, conservative organization?
One would think that Emperor Motion Pictures (the company that funded, produced, and distributed “W,” for Mr. Oliver Stone would also be a corporation, which is why I couldn’t understand Mr. Abram’s anger.
My main problem is the restriction of the freedom of speech though. If we allow one individual or group to have their freedom of speech cut off, it’s only a matter of time until the government comes after us.
Solution is to have “an independent, conservative organization” develop a “political blockbuster” and run it during the election. Wonder why that hasn’t happened? People vote with their ticket purchases. The market rules. Wait, where have we heard that before? From Michael Moore? Rob Reiner?