Senate Judiciary voting to amend Bill of Rights

[MissBrattified]

Text of the proposed amendment: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c113:S.J.RES.19:

The objection is this: Campaign contributions are a part of free speech, as an expression of support or opinion, and limiting contributions is limiting free speech.

FYI, the ACLU also opposes the amendment. [Source]

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

Text of the proposed amendment: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c113:S.J.RES.19:

The objection is this: Campaign contributions are a part of free speech, as an expression of support or opinion, and limiting contributions is limiting free speech.

FYI, the ACLU also opposes the amendment. [Source]

Thank you. Campaign contributions are free speech? I can't say i agree. Nor do I think that's the mosts primary concern in relation to that law. However I cant imagine a method that would allow us to regulate campaign contributions to the extent this law allows without possibly impeding on many individuals freedom of speech.

I think if there was a way to regulate campaign contributions without any other negative effects then I don't think anyone would have a problem with them.

The major problem I see with the law is this: Let's imagine a close senate race between a pro coal and anti coal candidate. Suppose a group that supports coal wants to run an add in against the anti coal candidate. They would not be able to if the pro coal candidate campaign was already close to their spending limit. That's not such a major problem but lets look at this the other way, what if there was just enough of a spending limit left to allow the ad to be played. Except now the pro coal candidate cant run his own add about what he is the better candidate. In fact the very principle of having limits on spending could easily lead opposing groups to make low quality fake ads supporting a candidate so he cant spend money on his own good ads. I think the law causes more problems than it can even hope to solve.

Stupid democrats on this one!

[aegsm76]

Originally Posted by jfrog

Yea I'm more inclined to believe PO fell for another republican hoax...

Can you tell me what republican hoax that she has fallen for before?

[n david]

Originally Posted by jfrog

Says the side thats not posted one bit of evidence...

There was a link to the hearing! What further proof do you need than watching it live?

Good grief.

[n david]

Originally Posted by jfrog

Stupid democrats on this one!

OMG now jfrog was duped by the "hoax!"

[aegsm76]

Glad to see jf switched to the right side!

[n david]

Originally Posted by aegsm76

Can you tell me what republican hoax that she has fallen for before?

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

Text of the proposed amendment: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c113:S.J.RES.19:

The objection is this: Campaign contributions are a part of free speech, as an expression of support or opinion, and limiting contributions is limiting free speech.

FYI, the ACLU also opposes the amendment. [Source]

"Congress would have the power to regulate the 'raising' and 'spending' of and 'in-kind equivalents' with respect to Federal elections..."

It's a rather ambiguous wording.

Chuck Grassley had the best argument, besides Sen. Ted Cruz.

Grassley Statement at Hearing on Constitutional Amendment Limiting Free Speech Print
For Immediate Release
Jun 03, 2014

Prepared Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
Hearing on: “Examining a Constitutional Amendment to
Restore Democracy to the American People”
Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Mr. Chairman, I can’t think of a more important hearing that the committee could hold. This hearing shows as clearly as possible the difference between conservatism and progressivism today. So let’s start with First Principles.

The Declaration of Independence states that everyone is endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights that governments are created to protect. Those preexisting rights include the right to liberty.

The Constitution was adopted to secure the blessings of liberty to Americans. Americans rejected the view that the structural limits on government power contained in the original Constitution would adequately protect the liberties they had fought a revolution to preserve. So they insisted on the adoption of a Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights protects individual rights regardless of whether the government or a majority approves of their use.

The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights protects the freedom of speech. That freedom is basic to self-government. Other parts of the Constitution foster equality or justice or representative government. But the Bill of Rights is only about individual freedom.

Free speech creates a marketplace of ideas in which citizens can learn, debate and persuade fellow citizens on the issues of the day. At its core, it enables the citizenry to be educated to cast votes to elect their leaders.

Today, freedom of speech is threatened as it has not been in many decades. Too many people are impatient and will not listen and debate and persuade. They want to punish, intimidate, and silence those with whom they disagree. A corporate executive who opposed same sex marriage – the same position that President Obama held at that time – is to be fired. Universities that are supposed to foster academic freedom cancel graduation speeches by speakers that some students find offensive. Government officials order other government officials not to deviate from the party line concerning proposed legislation.

S.J. Res. 19, cut from the same cloth, would amend the Constitution for the first time to diminish an important right of Americans that is contained in the Bill of Rights. In fact, it would cut back on the most important of these rights, core free speech about who should be elected to govern ourselves.

The proposed constitutional amendment would enable government to limit funds contributed to candidates and funds spent by or in support of candidates. That would give the government the ability to limit speech. The amendment would allow the government to set the limit at zero. There could be no contributions. There could be no election spending. There could be no public debate on who should be elected. Incumbents would find that outcome to be acceptable. They would know that no challenger could run an effective campaign against them. Rationing of speech at low limits would produce similar results.

What precedent would this amendment create?

Suppose Congress passed limits on what people could spend on abortions or what doctors or hospitals could spend to perform them? What if Congress limited the amount of money people could spend on guns? Or to limit how much people could spend of their own money on health care? Should Congress limit how much people can give to charities or how much a charity can spend?

Under this amendment, Congress could do what the Citizens United decision rightfully said it could not: make it a criminal offense for the Sierra Club to run an ad urging the public to defeat a congressman who favors logging in the national forests; for the National Rifle Association to publish a book seeking public support for a challenger to a senator who favors a handgun ban; or for the ACLU to post on its website a plea for voters to support a presidential candidate because of his stance on free speech.

That should be a frightening prospect for us all.

Under this amendment, Congress and the states could limit campaign contributions and expenditures without limit, and without complying with existing constitutional provisions. Congress could pass a law limiting expenditures by Democrats but not by Republicans, by opponents of Obamacare but not by supporters.

And what does the amendment mean when it says that Congress can limit funds spent in opposition to candidates? If an elected official says he or she plans to run again, long before any election, Congress under this amendment could criminalize any criticism of that official as spending in opposition to a candidate. A senator on the Senate floor, appearing on C-SPAN free of charge, could with immunity defame a private citizen. The member could say that the citizen was buying elections. If the citizen spent any money to rebut the charge, he could go to jail.

We would be back to the days when criticism of elected officials was a criminal offense, as during the Alien and Sedition Acts. And yet its supporters say this amendment is necessary for democracy.

The only existing right that the amendment says it will not harm is freedom of the press. So Congress and the states could limit the speech of anyone except the corporations that control the media. That would produce an Orwellian world in which every speaker is equal but some speakers are more equal than others. Freedom of the press has never been understood to give the media special constitutional rights denied to others.

After years of denying it, supporters of political spending limits now admit that enacting their agenda of restricting speech may require an amendment to our fundamental charter of liberty. But in light of recent Supreme Court decisions, an amendment soon may not be needed at all. Four justices right now would allow core political speech to be restricted. Were a fifth justice with this view to be appointed, there would be no need to amend the Constitution to cut back on freedom.

Justice Breyer’s dissent for these four justices in the McCutcheon decision does not view freedom of speech as an end in itself, as did our Founding Fathers. He thinks free political speech is about advancing “the public’s interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters.”

To be sure, individual rights often advance socially desirable goals. But our constitutional rights do not depend on whether unelected judges believe they advance democracy as they conceive it. Our constitutional rights are individual, not “collective.” Never in 225 years has any Supreme Court opinion described our rights as “collective.” As the Declaration of Independence states, our rights come from God and not from the government or the public.

Consider the history of the last 100 years. Freedom has flourished where rights belonged to individuals that governments were bound to respect. Where rights were collective, and existed only at the whim of a government that determines when they serve socially desirable purposes, the results have been literally horrific.

We should not move even one inch in the direction the liberal justices and this amendment would take us.

The stakes could not be higher for all Americans who value their rights and freedom. Speech concerning who the people’s elected representatives should be; speech setting the agenda for public discourse; speech designed to open and change the minds of our fellow citizens; speech criticizing politicians; and speech challenging government policy are all in the nation's vital rights. This amendment puts all of them in jeopardy upon penalty of imprisonment.

It would make America no longer America. I intend to do what I can to put a stop to it, and, I urge others to do the same.

http://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/...ng-free-speech

[Pressing-On]

ICYMI: Sen. Cruz Op-Ed in The Washington Times: ‘Fahrenheit 451’ Democrats
July 10, 2014
|
(202) 228-7561

WASHINGTON, DC -- Below is an op-ed penned by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, regarding efforts by Democrats to repeal free speech protections enshrined in the First Amendment.

‘Fahrenheit 451’ Democrats
The Washington Times
By Ted Cruz

I have three questions for my Democratic colleagues in the Senate: Should Congress be able to ban books? Should Congress be able to ban films? Should Congress be able to ban groups such as the NAACP, the National Rifle Association and the Sierra Club from speaking?

The answer to all three questions should, unequivocally, be “no.” But, sadly, 46 Democrats in the U.S. Senate are supporting a constitutional amendment to repeal the free-speech provisions of the First Amendment and give Congress carte blanche power to regulate political speech.

It’s all because a group of conservative filmmakers made a documentary film in 2008 about then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that did not speak favorably about her record. Forty-five Senate Democrats are now supporting a constitutional amendment from Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico to stop Americans from showing movies like the one Citizens United created during the 2008 election.

Forty-six Senate Democrats are willing to rewrite the Constitution to take away the right of Americans to speak or create art that is critical of politicians.

Forty-six Senate Democrats are actively working to silence political criticism ahead of the next presidential election.

They are the “Fahrenheit 451” Democrats.

Never before has Congress tampered with the First Amendment.

When a similar proposal was considered in 1997, the famed liberal lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, reminded his colleagues that never before had the Bill of Rights been amended and “now is no time to start.”

I agree with Ted Kennedy. Where are the Democrats who agree with him today? Not a single one has spoken out against this. Groupthink has taken over their party.

The American Civil Liberties Union, however, has sounded the alarm. The ACLU says the Democrats’ amendment would “severely limit the First Amendment and lead directly to government censorship of political speech.”

Floyd Abrams, perhaps the leading First Amendment litigator in the country and an outspoken Democrat, has, as well. He said the amendment “would limit speech that is at the heart of our First Amendment.”

Senate Democrats would like to pretend they could draw the line between what they think is “reasonable” political speech and “unreasonable” political speech. To hear the Democrats tell it, all they want to do is stop “corporate influences” from unfairly influencing the political debate.

However, The New York Times is a corporation. Should they stop penning editorials? NBC is a corporation. Should it quit airing “Saturday Night Live”?

After all, wasn’t Tina Fey influencing voters when she took on an Alaskan accent and declared “I can see Russia from my house” — something Sarah Palin never even said?

Didn’t Will Ferrell’s hilarious portrayals of President George W. Bush as childlike and confused change public opinion of our 43rd president? Wasn’t Seth Green swaying voters when he impersonated Vice President Al Gore as a dry, droning bore? Wasn’t Darrell Hammond enforcing a certain kind of perception of Bill Clinton when he presented the president as a lusty, smirking cad?

The answer is yes, yes, yes and yes. That’s what free speech gives Americans the power to do — mock, provoke, challenge and persuade. “Saturday Night Live” has a constitutional right to do so, but the Democrats’ amendment would allow Congress to ban the show.

The hard-line liberal partisans who want to rewrite the Constitution to give their party a political advantage certainly do not have the same interests in mind as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.

We should keep our faith in the Bill of Rights, rather than in politicians intent on preserving their power.

There will always be political speakers who someone disagrees with. Democrats should be free to disagree with films made by Citizens United, just as many Republicans disagree with films made by Mr. Gore and Michael Moore.

That’s a sign of a healthy and vibrant society. Banning films is not.

In Ray Bradbury’s novel “Fahrenheit 451,” — the temperature at which ‘book paper’ auto-ignites — Capt. Beatty, who is the chief book burner, said, “If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.”

That same sentiment was expressed by the Obama administration, which told the Supreme Court in Citizens United that, in its view, Congress could ban books.

When Justice Anthony Kennedy asked the Department of Justice if the Obama administration was truly arguing that, according to the Constitution, book sales could be prohibited, the Justice official replied, yes, “if the book contained the functional equivalent of express advocacy.”

That was a shocking exchange. The government made an unabashed argument for the government being able to stop a book from being sold.

As the ACLU observed, under the Democrats’ proposed amendment, Congress could ban Mrs. Clinton’s new book, “Hard Choices.”

It could ban anti-Hillary movies and pro-Hillary books alike. What then would become of our political debates? We would have only that which Congress would allow.

The Democrats, by working to shut down political speech, want to eliminate different sides of our most important questions, just as Capt. Beatty said.

Soon, Senate Democrats will hold their vote on a constitutional amendment to repeal our free-speech protections.

They are playing with fire. “Fahrenheit 451” is coming to life, and tragically, the Democrats are playing the role of the firemen who want to burn our books and silence the citizenry.

[Pressing-On]

The main point, yesterday:

Senator Mike Lee

The primary argument in support of this amendment is that “money isn’t speech.” Of course money is not the same thing as speech. Money is simply a tool used to carry out other activities.

But if Congress had the power to restrict the use of money to speak, the exercise of that power would unavoidably interfere with people’s ability to speak.

Freedom of speech is not simply one among many liberties protected in the Bill of Rights—it is absolutely essential to the health of our Republic. This is especially true of political speech, even when it contradicts the prevailing order.

http://www.lee.senate.gov/public/ind...9-7545c5f15d4b