2006.08.09: August 9, 2006: Headlines: Figures: COS - India: NGO's: Sierra Club: Environment: Freedom of Speech: Journalism: First Amendment: The Hill: Carl Pope writes: Free speech is not corruption
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2006.08.09: August 9, 2006: Headlines: Figures: COS - India: NGO's: Sierra Club: Environment: Freedom of Speech: Journalism: First Amendment: The Hill: Carl Pope writes: Free speech is not corruption
Carl Pope writes: Free speech is not corruption
"Hill readers may not realize it, but if you and a few neighbors and friends decide to get together and buy a billboard and newspaper ad criticizing your local congressman’s vote on a recent bill, if this bill passes, your small group of community activists may just have become a 527. And those of you who spent more than $5,000 each on the ads might even be facing some prison time for your temerity in appealing to your fellow citizens — even if you were just trying to counter some ads run by Washington special interests who organize under other provisions in the tax code." Sierra Club President Carl Pope served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in India in the 1960's.
Carl Pope writes: Free speech is not corruption
Free speech is not corruption
By David Keating and Carl Pope
In the movie “All the King’s Men,” the first thing the corrupt politicians do in their attempt to maintain political control is arrest local dissidents and take away their handbills.
The corporate-funded Committee for Economic Development (CED) ignores the benefits of free speech and the First Amendment when it calls on Congress to ban free speech by nonprofit citizen 527 groups. Free speech is the way to stop corruption when it threatens the system or to rid the system of it where it is entrenched.
These citizen groups don’t make “political contributions” to candidates. These groups can’t tell anyone how to vote and can’t coordinate their speech with candidates or political parties.
What the CED and other advocates of 527 regulation should be worried about is the Republicans’ interest in muzzling political opponents who dare to criticize their policies. Instead of engaging their opponents, their solution is to shut them up. The specter of silencing opponents is a far greater threat to citizen confidence in our system of government.
Republicans should instead follow Harry Truman’s advice when he said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Indeed.
It is a shame that, in a misguided attempt to curry favor with the GOP leadership, the CED agrees that Congress should silence citizen groups as part of a lobby reform bill. This is bizarre.
Not one 527 group has been associated with the Jack Abramoff scandal. So what is a proposal on 527 groups doing in a so-called “lobby reform” bill?
Under the 527 bill, for-profit corporations, like those that donate to the CED, could continue to spend unlimited amounts on speech about politicians without disclosing a cent to the public, and wealthy individuals could still spend unlimited amounts to urge voters to support or defeat a candidate.
How is that fair? It is not.
The CED is either ignorant of what it supports or naive when it fails to understand that the money being donated to 527s can and will move to other entities, and the criticisms of Congress will continue. The irony is that by effectively shutting down 527s, which must report all donors over $200 per year and major expenditures, funds will shift to organizations with few or no public disclosure requirements for such advertisements.
This bill goes way beyond the prohibitions on ads imposed by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act that most Republicans at that time said were too draconian. Those limits barred “only” TV and radio ads from most groups if they even mention the name of a candidate within 60 days of a November election.
Their proposal now would ban any ads placed anywhere at any time of any kind in any medium any day of any year unless you start a highly regulated political action committee or your group qualifies under some other section of the tax code. This is ridiculous.
Instead of looking for ways to expand accountability of elected officials after the current congressional corruption scandals, the 527 bill is nothing more than an attempt to silence the voices of citizens on the left and the right who think Washington has gone off track. Congress wants to homogenize the type of issues they consider and follow their own agenda, not the agenda of the American people.
Hill readers may not realize it, but if you and a few neighbors and friends decide to get together and buy a billboard and newspaper ad criticizing your local congressman’s vote on a recent bill, if this bill passes, your small group of community activists may just have become a 527. And those of you who spent more than $5,000 each on the ads might even be facing some prison time for your temerity in appealing to your fellow citizens — even if you were just trying to counter some ads run by Washington special interests who organize under other provisions in the tax code.
Elected officials backing this bill may think they are making a wise political move, but subverting the Constitution in an attempt to make political gains is inexcusable and will likely backfire. Lucky for the American people, a growing number of senators and representatives on both sides of the aisle recognize how dangerous this legislation is and reject the claims of those who say citizen groups can corrupt the system and damage the public trust.
Keating is executive director of the Club for Growth, and Pope is president of the Sierra Club.
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Story Source: The Hill
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - India; NGO's; Sierra Club; Environment; Freedom of Speech; Journalism; First Amendment
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