Say Anything Blog

Interesting...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court Monday threw out Vermont's strict limits on campaign expenditures and contributions, in a badly splintered 6-3 vote.

The court also ruled 5-4 that Kansas' death-penalty statute doesn't violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In the Vermont case, there were six separate opinions. Justice Stephen Breyer authored the main plurality opinion, which drew only three votes.

"We hold that both sets of limits are inconsistent with the First Amendment," Justice Breyer wrote. "Well-established precedent makes clear that the expenditure limits violate the First Amendment," he said. "The contribution limits are unconstitutional because in their specific details they fail to satisfy the First Amendment's requirement of careful tailoring."

The case rises out of multiple challenges to Vermont's campaign contribution and spending limits for state-level offices, which are the strictest state restrictions in the country. While the Supreme Court has generally allowed limits on campaign contributions since ruling in Buckley v. Valeo in 1976, the court has generally ruled against campaign-expenditure limits.

The Vermont law limited candidate contributions to between $200 and $400 per election cycle. Political action committees can accept no more than $2,000 from a single source. Candidates for governor may spend no more than $300,000, but state senators are limited to $4,000 and state representatives $2,500. The law also puts a 25% cap on out of state contributions per candidate and also puts limits on political party spending.

The law was challenged in 1999 on First Amendment grounds by several groups, including the state's Libertarian Party, the Vermont Republican State Committee and an antiabortion group. "This effort is in flagrant disregard of the First Amendment and is unconstitutional," the Republican committee said. In addition to free-speech complaints, the groups said the law gives an unfair advantage to incumbents.

I wonder what implications this holds for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform?

Regardless, this movement to regulate political campaigning in America is getting out of hand. Political groups are being stopped from placing advertisements critical of candidates before elections. Home owners are being required to take down campaign signs from their property before elections. For the sake (allegedly) of electoral equality our politicians have significantly limited our free speech.

But this isn't really about equality of fairness. This is about incumbents staying in power. After all, when you're trying to tell citizens about the poor the incumbent is doing the best way to reach them is through advertising and door-to-door campaigning. Yet when limits are placed on those things your message becomes less effective, thus the incumbent has a better chance of staying in office.

A lot of campaign reformers support their actions by saying that they're taking the "big money" out of politics. That's baloney. The 2004 election cycle saw more money spent on campaigning than ever before. The money hasn't been taken out of politics, the free speech of the people has. At least to some extent.

It would be wonderful to see the court system take on these reforms and strike them down in favor of free speech.