A government not worth influencing
Published April 12, 2014
Editorial by Jacksonville Daily News, April 11, 2014.
In eliminating yet another federal limit on campaign contributions, the U.S. Supreme Court on April 2 reaffirmed the principle that money is political speech and, therefore, protected under the First Amendment.
That notion enrages those who view dollars spent on politics as a threat to democracy. Indeed, although the court’s 5-4 decision in McCutcheon v. FEC struck down a relatively obscure law that limited the total amount an individual can contribute to various federal campaigns over a two-year campaign cycle, critics treated it as the death knell of the republic and a harbinger of the coming oligarchy.
All that rending of garments is over the fact that now a donor can give $5,200 to any number of candidates for federal office, instead of just nine — as if 10 represented a tipping point.
At the core of the McCutcheon decision is a debate over corruption vs. influence. The court’s majority narrowly defines the former, while the dissenting minority seeks to conflate the two.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, argues that the court has identified only one legitimate governmental interest for restricting campaign finances: preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption, and that the only type of corruption Congress may target is quid pro quo corruption.
In his dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer argues that the definition of “corruption” should be expanded to include “influence over or access to” elected officials. But influencing government is a fundamental American freedom, expressed in the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech and the right to petition. Indeed, the court has repeatedly ruled that political speech, as opposed to other kinds (such as obscenity), is “the primary object of First Amendment protection,” and thus held to the highest scrutiny of government interference.
In the case of McCutcheon, Breyer and the other dissenters would uphold laws that restrict an individual citizen’s ability to influence politics by capping the number of campaigns he can contribute to, but which would allow media organizations unlimited opportunities to opine. Roberts hit on this possibility when he wrote, “the Government may no more restrict how many candidates or causes a donor may support than it may tell a newspaper how many candidates it may endorse.”
There is a better way to reduce the role Big Money plays in politics, without encroaching on the First Amendment: Give it less to influence.
The increase in the number of lobbying and advocacy groups and the money they spend coincides with the growth of the regulatory state. The more aspects of our lives government attempts to control, the more those affected will seek to influence those decisions — as is their constitutional right.
Giving government more power while reducing citizens’ ability to shape its decisions would be the true death of democracy. Want to get money out of politics? Don’t allow a government so big that its worth the dollars being spent on it.
A version of this editorial first appeared in the Daytona Beach News Journal, a Halifax Media Group newspaper.
April 12, 2014 at 10:02 am
Tom Hauck says:
Fully agree with the editorial.
Thank you for including it.
By the way the N & O on 4/12/14 had a short note in
Notable numbers" on page 14A saying Senate Majority PAC and Patriot Majority USA -- two liberal PAC's have spent $3.25 million while American Crossroads, a conservative Super PAC has spent $0.29 million. In other words the two liberal PAC's have spent over ten times more than the conservative PAC to elect a Senator. Where is the fairness?
