The Roberts court…activist is a good word now?
La Dolce Vita blog from Arizona points us to a SCOTUS decision:
Ever since Gore v Bush it has become apparent that the US Supreme Court has taken it upon themselves to occasionally decide the outcome of US elections. Yesterday they demonstrated this ability again when they decided to block funding for three of the top four candidates for Arizona governor. This means these three gubernatorial candidates will not be getting their anticipated $1.4 million in public matching funds beginning in two weeks.
Two weeks! Our Supreme Court justices have given these three candidates two weeks to find alternative funding that would have otherwise been available through the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Act that has been in existence for twelve years.
As I wrote earlier, the Clean Elections Act “corrected the AzScam problems that made a mockery of the Arizona election process. The corporatist cronies who were the big losers when this law passed have been fighting to overturn (or weaken) it ever since.”
Yesterday they succeeded – thanks to the US Supreme Court.
The Roberts court chose to delay looking at the matter until their next session, meaning no decision will be made on whether they even intend to hear the Clean Elections appeal until after the election. But they did agree to block the existing CLEAN ELECTIONS procedures which have been IN PLACE FOR TWELVE YEARS anyway.
Here is a quick e-mail back from Beverly Mann, The Annarborist and sometime guest on constitutional issues at Angry Bear on this topic:
I think the Fab Five on the Court are playing with major fire here. The First Amendment argument is one that most people, including those who oppose campaign finance laws, will recognize as ridiculous: that the law unconstitutionally limits the free speech of the privately funded candidates because the privately funded candidates are “forced” to limit their own their spending in order to avoid triggering the provision that will entitle their opponents to more public money.
Some commentator, I can’t recall who, described this aptly as pretzel logic. As the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the law, said, the non-public-funded candidates really are arguing not that their own speech is limited but that the law gives their opponents access to the same right of speech that they—the non-public-funded candidates—have.
Most people will recognize that this law does not limit the free speech of the non-public-funded candidates.
Beverly
yeah
anytime a nominee for the Supreme Court says “i will interpret the law, not make it.” you know he is either a liar (good) or dumb (not bad) or insane… a person who truly believes that what he believes is the Truth.
We seem to be getting more of the last lately.
The First Amendment argument is one that most people, including those who oppose campaign finance laws will recognize as ridiculous:
I don’t find it ridiculous. Free speech is free speech which pretty means unregulated speech. How can speech be free when the government can limit who can say what, when, and under what cirmumstance. Free speech does not require that the speech be muted speech. It does not require that you can say only things when nobody is listening. But if you want to be heard you have to go on the radio or television to say what you want to say in an unfettered way. The airwaves are scarce resources so it cost money to be widely heard. How can speech be free when the government seeks to prohibit and limit the ways people can organize and raise money pay for time on the Radio or television.
Roberts is right on free speech; and Mitch McConnell is a great American for standing up to those that go against American values by trying to manage what is communicated between people.
Most people will recognize that this law does not limit the free speech of the non-public-funded candidates.
When speech is free you don’t have to specify who is entitled to it and who is not.
Please specify these limits that public financeinfg puts on those who can finance more than the public financing offers.
Whitewhale,
The Az campaign finance law does not limit in any way what can be spent. It does not limit one’s behavior. It only provides a means by which others can extend their voice so as not to be drowned out by the volume produced by another’s money. That’s not an infringment of speech. It more accurately qualifies as an enhancement of someone’s speech.
Jack,
Jack,
If the state of Arizona wants to give away its money or not to candidates I don’t see how this is any business of the Federal government. I prefer that there be no campaign finance law and people other than using obscenity or screem fire in a crowded theater should be able to say pretty much what they want to (the counter examples that you might come up with generally don’t apply to political speech). I also don’t agree with making sources of funding public. Afterall, the commentators on Foxnews and the column writers at the New York Times don’t say what party they belong to or provide a list of politicians that they voted for in past elections. Forcing others to put disclaimers on their political message also is a violation of free speech.
Again, I don’t see why its so hard to understand the meaning of word free in the phrase “free speech”. I think free speech is a right and if anyone is telling you what you can say or how you can say it then thats a violation of this right.
On an activist bench that term refers to judges making new law on their own that’s not based on the U.S. constitution. Roberts is returning the court to this standard basing decisions on the constitution and trying to undo law that was wrongly decided in the past according to this point of view. If you want to call returning conservative principals activism I don’t have a problem with that – so long as you’re also willing to acknowledge the difference between liberal activism making new law because its unpopular from the activism of acting on conservative principals.
Oh please, no screeds. youve explained nothing.
well, yeah.
and i might even agree with you. now what do you want to do about the real world in which it turns out your friends with a lot of money buy all the air time and most of the newspapers and the people, bless their hearts, don’t know enough to do any more than chant “four legs good two legs baader.”
Put it this way so that people with limited understanding of a simple issue might better comprehend that issue. You’re listening to your favorite music sitting relaxed in your home. I park my car right outside and blast my stereo with boom box to a level that totally drowns out the sound of your home set. You’re pissed off because I’ve exercised my freedom to listen and enjoy, but in such a way that it has now interfered with your ability to do the same. Is that the freedom that you so patriotically want to protect. And why then is a noise ordinance any different from any other infringement of “free” speech.
Politicians and their supporters can have too much freedom to the point where their freedom of speech begins to overwhelm an other’s ability to speak out and/or be heard. If you don’t want the law to limit one campaign’s freedom to screech then there needs to be a means by which to try to equalize the volume of speech from competing parties. The Court seems to be losing sight of the need for equality of freedoms, in this case the freedom to be heard above the din of the competition.
“The airwaves are scarce resources so it cost money to be widely heard. How can speech be free when the government seeks to prohibit and limit the ways people can organize and raise money pay for time on the Radio or television.”
Because, when there is a scarce resource the use of that resource by one person reduces the potential use of that resource by another. Therefore nobody’s speech is free with regard to that resource. The exercise of the speech rights of one diminishes the speech rights of others. In such a case it may be necessary to limit the speech of one in order to protect the speech rights of others.
The problem is a logical one, that of confounding the right of free speech with the amplification of broadcasting of that speech. Free speech does not require the use of scarce resources. By contrast, freedom of the press does not protect the rights of those who do not own or rent a press or other means of publication.
McCain, with his wife’s millions and millions from lobbyists, has so much money that he is robo calling Democrats. Democrats cannot vote for our last line of defense in the AZ primary. George Bush, with the help of his wealthy friends, took the country places that it may never return from. The Supreme Court with an unsigned opinion stopped the middle class from at least having the game played on a slightly tilted field which, of course, favors the the poor oppressed rich.
Jack,
I’m not saying that you don’t have a valid point. The rich and politically connected have a greater ability to influence political outcomes than the average American. I’m quite capable of telling a rich person looking for my vote to go stuff if. Everyone else can do this too. However, the rich get a better chance to make their case. This is just the way it is. You can’t shut them up and at the same time say you are for free speech and the first ammendment of the U.S. constitution. So you have to let them make their case. It part of the freedom package.
Who is not letting them make their case?? Please be specific whitewhale.
As Dan points out, the law in no way limits what anyone can spend or what anyone can say. You’re either making that up or ,isunderstanding the law. The law only provides for others to recceive financial campaign assistance when they are faced with a significant imbalance of campaign funding. You seem to be saying that if I get some kind of help to do something because you can better afford to do a lot of it, then that means that you are being being prohibited from doing the same thing. Huh??? You’re not being prohibited from doing anything, but it sure sounds like you want to keep others from the opportunity to say their piece in a political campaign as loudly and as often as you can.
Jack,
So far there is no U.S. supreme court decision so I don’t have anything to read to understand their reasoning — which as I undestand has not been formed yet.
As Dan points out, the law in no way limits what anyone can spend or what anyone can say. You’re either making that up or ,isunderstanding the law.
First, I don’t make things up. The opponents of the law say that the matching funds limit their speech because everytime they say something their opponents are subsidized to contradict them.
“Basically, everytime they speak, every time they spend money, the government will provide their opponents, oftentimes more than one opponent, with money to overwhelm that message, and that creates a disincentive, if not an outright ban on the ability of people to speak freely about political matters,”
Do we know how the court will rule, and how the breakout of Supreme court votes will break out? If not then what’s the justification for attacking the Robert’s court?
As an aside, the media generally favors democrats and republicans have to spend money to get their message heard. I don’t see a law that says everytime a columnist writes a story that’s pro democrat and/or anti republican that the media outlet then has to turn around and have a guest columnist write a story that’s pro republican and/or anti democrat. This type of control seems wrong to me. The government should not be in the business of manging private communication.
I see. You are waiting to see what the rationale is, if SCOTUS forms a ruling, based on constitutional law, which is different than our back of the envelop conversation.
whitewhale
you lost me. “the media favors democrats.” that’s republican bullshit. the media favors the corporatocracy, and runs “moderate right.” of course if they don’t ditto rush you think they are “favoring the left.”
and your thought disorder is made evident by your willingness to accept the argument that “giving the other guy money to answer you limits your speech.” my, god, a person who could say that … well, there is no point talking to them.
Rdan,
The government in my view has no right to manage speech. They need to get out of this business. They can’t do it without raising conflict of interest issues. I think the U.S. Supreme court is doing a decent job of protectiving free speech — even the liberal members of the court. We don’t know what the final vote in the court will be yet.
http://www.slate.com/id/2256458/ Try David Souter.
Coberly,
I don’t think I did lose you. Otherwise how could you conclude that something is BS. Of course the democrats get an easier time of it. For example they are going soft on president Obama with the oil spill. If it were Bush you would see them yelling, sceaming, and posturing more.
You should not even try to argue against media bias in favor of democrats and against republicans. Just stuff it in your pocket and consider it an asset. That’s the honest thing to do.
Whitewhale, ” The opponents of the law say that the matching funds limit their speech because everytime they say something their opponents are subsidized to contradict them”
You’re not describing an infringment of speech. You are describi9ng debate. Every time you spend money to speak your piece loudly in public you may be answered by others. How those others come by the ability to present their response is not an infringment on your original speech.