EDITOR'S NOTE
Rothschild, Matthew
EDITOR'S NOTE Matthew Rothschild Limits on Speech? There is no issue I've spent more time thinking about this year than campaign-finance reform and free speech. I've read every article I could...
...In the case of campaign finance, the social interest could not be greater: Our democracy itself is for sale...
...If Paul Wellstone runs for President, and your favorite nonprofit group that promotes universal health care wants to take out an ad praising Wellstone for his position on this issue, how would you feel if the government said no...
...we've defended banned books...
...This is the epitome of arbitrariness...
...I've read every article I could get hold of on the subject...
...Take McCain-Feingold...
...That's not only my duty, it's the Supreme Court's, and it's all of ours here in the United States...
...This "sky's-the-limit" approach has no attraction for me...
...we've defended Mapplethorpe...
...Wary about using terms like "absolutist...
...That's going way too far for me...
...Some of McCain-Feingold I support, especially the abolition of soft money...
...Any imposition of limits should meet the following conditions: There should be an overriding social interest, all other options for solving the problem should be exhausted, and the limits should be least restrictive...
...But what does that mean in this case...
...I've tried to puzzle through the maze of existing laws and the competing claims of reformers...
...Just because it takes money to purchase an ad, does that mean the government has a right to censor that ad...
...This would go a long way toward getting corrupt money out of politics...
...The giving of unlimited contributions to parties today is as obscene and corrupting as the giving of such contributions to candidates was before Watergate...
...But that doesn't make me a First Amendment relativist...
...For me, it's been particularly difficult because here at The Progressive we take the First Amendment very seriously...
...And it would tell us that we couldn't say certain things on Labor Day that we could say on August 31...
...But what I'm not in favor of is letting the government dictate the content of speech...
...Many on the left say the answer is that money is not speech...
...If the word is taken at its literal meaning, the government has no role whatsoever in limiting campaign spending, or false advertisements, or gross sexual or racial harassment...
...We've defended the Nazis in Skokie...
...The candidates who took public funding would not be allowed to raise money privately...
...George Will and many other Republicans are now claiming this high ground, advocating that all limits on campaign spending should be lifted...
...Beware crude dichotomies...
...That any limits on campaign advertising are infringements on the Constitution...
...First, there is a better solution to the problem: full public financing...
...As Erwin Knoll, my predecessor, was fond of saying, "We are absolutists on the First Amendment...
...More than ever before, the federal government would be in the dirty business of inspecting our speech and gagging our mouths...
...Our defense was the First Amendment...
...We've always maintained that the government has no right to tell Americans what they can or cannot say...
...It would prohibit all groups except PACs from taking out ads that mention candidates by name within sixty days of an election...
...But McCain-Feingold fails on the other two counts...
...In 1979, we fought the U.S...
...Second, McCain-Feingold's limits on issue advocacy are too expansive...
...government for the right to publish "The H-Bomb Secret...
...we've defended hate speech...
...Sure, some millionaires and some hustlers would skip the deal and try to outdistance the publicly financed candidate, but at least that candidate would have a running start...
...I recognize that allowing issue ads to mention candidates' names leaves open a loophole...
...And I've tried to hash it out with my colleagues, though we still may not be in agreement...
...It would simply compound the corrupting power of money in politics, leaving the wealthy and corporations with more clout than ever...
...I find this facile...
...So where does this leave me...
...It's such a hard call that we thought we'd let you watch two venerable institutions fight it out—the ACLU vs...
...But on what constitutional basis do we build our case for limiting campaign spending...
...I worry that in our eagerness to get money out of politics, we'll give the government inordinate power...
...We must cherish the First Amendment, and cherish democratic rule at the same time...
...But it's better for us to sort through these ads ourselves than have the government do it for us...
...Any candidate who gets enough signatures to qualify for the ballot should receive an amount of money equal to that spent by candidates in the previous campaign...
...Public Citizen...
...Some campaign-finance-reform proposals would bring the government into the business of telling people what they can or cannot say...
...Now you make the call...
...How do we do that...
Vol. 61 • December 1997 • No. 12
