In my N.Y. Post column today, I look at a case out of Maine, where McCain-Feingold is shutting down grassroots lobbying.
Essentially, a Christian group that wants to lobby on the Marriage Protection Amendment can’t run its ads because they mention Sen. Olympia Snowe, who faces an uncontested primary in June.
According to a panel of federal judges, it’s illegal to criticize Snowe because:
"The advertisement might have the effect of
encouraging a new candidate to oppose Sen. Snowe, reducing the number
of votes cast for her in the primary, weakening her support in the
general election, or otherwise undermining her efforts to gather
support, including by raising funds for her re-election."
God forbid.
By RYAN SAGER
May 22, 2006
– IS "campaign-finance reform" about preventing political corruption?
Or is about restricting political speech to protect politicians from
criticism? The standard line, from Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold
- along with a complacent media - is the former. But what’s going on
right now in Maine points to the latter.
In short: The federal
courts have told a Christian group it can’t run a radio ad next month,
when the Senate is scheduled to take up consideration of the Marriage
Protection Amendment, because the ad takes a mild swipe at Sen. Olympia
Snowe (R-Maine) around the same time she faces a June 13 primary
election.
Under the McCain-Feingold law, it’s illegal for any ad to even mention
a politician (except in tightly regulated circumstances) in the 30 days
before a primary or the 60 days before a general election.
How cushy for Sen. Snowe (a co-author of the law).
The Christian Civic League of Maine has sued for the right to run the
ad, so far without luck. A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court
in Washington, D.C., ruled that the ad is nothing more than a "sham" -
that, while ostensibly seeking to influence legislation, it’s really
aimed at electing or defeating a federal candidate. Last Monday, the
Supreme Court declined to intervene.
Huh. If the ad is aimed at defeating Snowe in the GOP primary, it’s pretty foolish: She’s running unopposed.
(The court’s logic: "The advertisement might have the effect of
encouraging a new candidate to oppose Sen. Snowe, reducing the number
of votes cast for her in the primary, weakening her support in the
general election, or otherwise undermining her efforts to gather
support, including by raising funds for her re-election." God forbid.)
It’s worth, at this point, reprinting the ad’s full text:
Our country stands at the crossroads - at the intersection of how marriage will be defined for future generations.
Marriage between a man and a woman has been challenged across this country and could be declared unconstitutional at any time by rogue judges. We must safeguard the traditional definition of marriage by putting it beyond the reach of all judges - by writing it into the U.S. Constitution.
Unfortunately, your senators voted against the Marriage Protection Amendment two years ago. Please call Sens. Snowe and Collins immediately and urge them to support the Marriage Protection Amendment when it comes to a vote in early June. Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your senators. Again, that’s 202-224-3121.
Thank you for making your voice heard.
Snowe’s vote is "unfortunate"? Them’s fightin’ words.
Decide for yourself whether the ad is an endorsement of the Marriage
Protection Amendment by a group of concerned citizens or part of a
deviously clever campaign to unseat Snowe. Either is a perfectly acceptable goal under our Constitution (How else
do you influence the vote of an elected official other than to raise
the threat of his or her not being elected again?), yet this is no
longer protected speech in America.
The original goal of
campaign-finance "reform" was to reduce the influence of big
contributors, particularly corporations and labor unions, so that they
wouldn’t drown out the voices of the little guys. But now, because
nonprofit groups like the Christian Civic League are technically
corporations (the same as General Motors or Enron), the little guys’
voices are silenced as well - all as part of a never-ending quest to
close "loopholes" that let money into politics.
The "big
money" being kept out of the Maine Senate race in this case? An
anonymous donor who agreed to cover the $3,992 cost of the radio buy.
Those lined up against the Christian Civic League have their
justifications (as always) for why it’s OK to silence a group of
citizens concerned about a bill moving through Congress (you know,
people trying to exercise their core First Amendment rights). They
could take out a newspaper ad, the regulators say. Or run a phone bank.
Or set up a Political Action Committee - a highly regulated and
immensely costly and time-consuming solution to a problem that
shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Of course, making it
extremely inconvenient to criticize incumbent politicians was exactly
the goal of the legislators (all incumbents, by the way) who gave us
McCain-Feingold.
"Politicians know it is more difficult, and
they want it to be more difficult," James Bopp Jr., the lawyer handling
the League’s case, says. "It’s about incumbent politicians not wanting
to be criticized."
Nothing more. Nothing less.
Ryan Sager blogs at rhsager.com
I have a couple of questions about this case. One, how did it get through the courts well in advance of the ads airing? I’d have thought the way it works is that the group buys these ads, the radio station play them, the FEC fines them, and _then_ they go to court.
Two, “they could take out a newspaper ad, the regulators say.” I thought newspaper ads were also prohibited in the period prior to the election.
1) CCL moved for declaratory injunction - i.e. asked court in advance to hold law invalid as applied to them;
2) The 30/60 day limit on even mentioning a candidate only applies to broadcast ads.
Excellent column in the New York Post! Many thanks for pointing out how McCain-Feingold is used to stifle free speech and keep incumbents in power.
Mark W. Rutherford, Chairman, Libertarian Party of Indiana