Posted by
Always To The Right on Saturday, September 19, 2009 4:24:53 PM
For years, many of us in the blogosphere have argued that the
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, better known as McCain-Feingold,
violates the fundamental Constitutional exercise of free speech,
especially in politics, which the founders expressly intended to
protect. The Supreme Court failed in its duty to protect the First
Amendment when it had the chance, as did George W. Bush when he signed
the legislation into law. Finally, a federal appellate court has recognized the insult to the Constitution that the BCRA represents
The opinions were interesting for their recalculation over the last few
years on the right of Americans to organize into political action
groups. The main opinion
noted that political contributions count as “speech” and that restricting them runs into First Amendment issues
. . . it is not Congress’ job to redistribute speech. It’s also not their job to redistribute wealth, which a court will someday make plain, based on Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Political action groups (and for that matter, incumbents) should have equal opportunity to raise money and conduct speech, but they should not be guaranteed equal outcomes — which with the BCRA actually means unequal outcomes.