Is Banning Books Next?
Friday, September 11th, 2009 By Marc KilmerThe Cato Institute has put out a great video on the conflict between campaign finance restrictions and free speech. As it discusses, if the Supreme Court upholds federal law which bans corporations from paying for advertising deemed political, there is nothing to stop the government from banning political books:
Tags: campaign finance reform
September 11th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Well now! That was a bit over the top!
The distinction that the film over-looks is that the law bans corporations from directly contributing to elections. Individuals remain free to publish and broadcast whatever they want. The Court has upheld that First Amendment right over and over.
The current case before the court is interesting. Corporations are not people, and do not have the same rights as people. However, they enjoy many of the same rights as people. For example, corporations do not enjoy the right against self-incrimination, but they cannot be searched without a warrant.
Corporations have a right to free speech, but at the same time, commercial speech has always been excepted, and can be regulated and restricted. Since corporations by definition engage exclusively in commerce, this case is right at the intersection of the right to free speech verses the right of the government to regulate commerce.
My personal bias is that the best remedy for bad speech, is more speech. We don’t ban Nazis or the Klan, we let them speak, and then defeat them with more and better speech.
As to campaign finance reform laws. Put aside their constitutionality for a moment. As a practical matter they are an abject failure. The laws are complex, but the money still finds a way to flow.
So, while I don’t buy the alarmism of the Cato film, I think I agree with their end result. Let’s have more free speech along with more transparency.