Words matter. These are the best Bradley A. Smith Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The next time you download a book on Kindle, buy a Michael Moore screed at Barnes & Noble, or order up a political movie from video on demand, remember that it is the Supreme Court’s decision in ‘Citizens United’ that guarantees you the right to do so.
The truth is, the ‘Fortune’ 500 prefer lobbying to campaigning.
By law, super PACs are required to disclose their donors. There are groups that have never had to disclose their donors, non-profits such as the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, and the NRA. If you want more disclosure, super PACs are a step forward.
Americans may not always live up to the Bill of Rights, but Americans do not ban books.
There is no evidence that super PACs have led to a greater percentage of negative ads.
Elections are a competition with only one winner. Giving more money to the opponent every time one speaks on behalf of a favored candidate discourages the speech that triggers the matching funds.
If candidates spend money on ads and other political speech and their opponents are rewarded with government handouts to attack them, that chills speech and is unconstitutional. Non-participating candidates certainly don’t volunteer to allow their opponents to receive taxpayer subsidies to bash them.
The usual test under the Federal Election Campaign Act for whether something counts as a campaign expenditure is whether the obligation would have existed but for the campaign. If so, it is not a campaign expenditure.
Few developments in campaigning have been as vilified and misunderstood as independent expenditure PACs, or, as they are colloquially known, super PACs.
The reality is that asking the public to fund political campaigns accomplishes nothing. Candidates continue to seek interest-group support through other channels, both financial and in-kind, and corruption problems abound.
Unlike many in the conservative camp, I accept theories of global warming, and accept that man-made activity has played a part in global warming. My differences have only been on what the solutions should be.
Ultimately, the court is heading to a doctrine of ‘separation of campaign and state.’ This doctrine, like separation of church and state or separation of military and civilian authority, is not explicit in the Constitution but flows naturally from its structure and commitment to freedom and democracy.
