Democrats Attacking Freedom of Speech in the Political Arena

In his weekly newsletter, UT Senator Orrin Hatch published an address he made on the Senate floor (on 09 Sept 2014) that outlines the push by Democrats to stifle freedom of speech in the political process.
Please read the text in its entirety to really understand the issue he is warning his fellow Senators about; as well as educating his constituency on the issue.
If after reading this you feel the need to speak up, then write a letter or email your Senators and express your opinion. Anytime one of our basic Constitutional Rights is under attack, we must all stand up a tell the Government and emphatic, "NO!"

"Speaking on the Senate Floor today, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a current member and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and longtime defender of First Amendment rights, pushed back against Senate Democrats’ latest attempt to stifle free speech. Hatch outlined several specific ways in which S.J.Res.19, which all Senate Democrats support, empowers government to control what Americans say and do in the political process. 

S.J.Res.19 “would allow the government to control raising and spending of money by anyone doing anything at any time to influence elections,” Hatch said. “We should prohibit rather than empower government to control how Americans participate in the political process.” 
“Supporters of this radical proposal apparently believe that freedom itself is the problem,” Hatch added. “That view is contrary to the most fundamental principles of this republic, and incompatible with a free society.  Freedom is not the problem, it is the solution.” 

More than 40 years ago, in New York Times v. Sullivan, Justice William Brennan described “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”  The measure now before the Senate shows that this commitment is in serious jeopardy. 

Mdme. President, next week marks the 227th anniversary of the drafting of the United States Constitution.  Those who participated in that process agreed that individual liberty requires limits on government power, but they differed on how explicit and extensive those limits should be.  
Many thought that the simple act of delegating enumerated powers to the federal government and reserving the rest to the states would be enough.  Others were more skeptical of government power and insisted that the Constitution needed a Bill of Rights. 

Those skeptics, however, were not skeptical enough.  The measure before us today, Senate Joint Resolution 19, would allow the government to control and even prohibit what Americans say and do in the political process. 

Yesterday, a member of the majority leadership said that this measure is “narrowly tailored.”  It is possible to believe that only if you have never read Senate Joint Resolution 19 and know nothing about either the Supreme Court’s precedents or past proposals of this kind. 

This is not the first attempt at empowering government to suppress political speech, but it is the most extreme.  Four elements of this proposal are particularly troubling.  First, its purpose is to advance what it calls “political equality.”  None of the constitutional amendments previously proposed to control political speech has made such a claim.  

The irony here is astounding.  At the very time in our history when technology is naturally leveling the political playing field, this proposal would give the power to define political equality to government.  If simply suggesting that the government should have the power to enforce its own version of political equality is not enough to oppose this proposal, then our liberties are in even greater danger than I thought. 

In addition to its stated purpose, this proposal is also troubling because of the power it would give to government.  Past proposals of this kind were very specific about what government could regulate.  One measure, for example, covered expenditures made “to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for Federal office.”   More recently, proposed amendments covered expenditures made “in support of, or in opposition to, a candidate.”  

The proposal before us today, however, says that government may regulate “the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections.”  That’s all it says.  It would allow government to control raising and spending of money by anyone doing anything at any time to influence elections.  No proposal of this kind has ever been drafted more broadly. 

The same Democrat Senator who yesterday claimed this proposal is narrowly tailored referred to big-money campaign donors, high rollers, and for-profit corporations with unlimited budgets.  I urge not only my colleagues, but everyone listening to this debate, to read Senate Joint Resolution 19.  Just read it.  My liberal friends may want to paint certain billionaires or for-profit corporations as the Big Bad Wolf, but this proposal goes far beyond that.  

It would allow government to regulate raising and spending money not only by billionaires or corporations but by what it simply labels others.  That means everyone, everywhere.  It means individuals as well as groups, rich as well as poor, for-profits, non-profits – under this proposal, government could control them all. 

It takes no imagination whatsoever to realize that virtually everything can influence elections.  Voter registration drives, get-out-the-vote efforts, non-partisan voter information, discussion about issues, town meetings, all of these activities and many many more influence elections.  Once again, I urge everyone to read the proposal before us.  It would give government the power to regulate anything done by anyone at any time to influence elections. 

The third troubling element of this proposal is that it would suppress the First Amendment freedom of speech for individual citizens but protect the First Amendment freedom of the press for Big Media.  Supporters of this amendment want to manipulate and control how individual citizens influence elections but are perfectly happy with how Big Media influences elections.  

This proposal would allow government to prohibit non-profit organizations from raising or spending a single dollar to influence elections, but leaves multi-billion dollar media corporations free to influence elections as much as they choose.  That set of priorities represents a twisted sense of political equality that I cannot believe most Americans share. 

Finally, this proposal would allow government to distinguish between what it calls natural persons and “corporations or other artificial entities created by law.”  Unlike other provisions of the Bill of Rights such as the Fourth or Fifth Amendments, the First Amendment does not use the word person.  It simply protects the freedom of speech, a freedom that obviously can be exercised not only individually but also collectively. 
 
Yesterday, a Democrat Senator dismissed the notion that corporations can be treated as “persons” under the law because corporations never get married, raise kids, or care for sick relatives. 
Is he kidding?  A corporation cannot care for sick relatives, but it certainly can speak and that is what this debate is about.  As the Supreme Court observed more than a century ago, corporations are “merely associations of individuals.”  And perhaps I need to remind my colleagues that the first section of the first title of the United States Code is the Dictionary Act.  It defines the word person to include “corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.” 

Many of what this proposal labels artificial entities such as non-profit organizations, associations, or societies exist to magnify the voices of individuals.  The Supreme Court case that sparked this debate, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, was brought not by a for-profit corporation but by a non-profit organization.  

Senate Joint Resolution 19 would allow government not only to regulate but to prohibit the raising or spending of money by these non-profits, associations, and societies to influence elections.  They could be banned from speaking on behalf of what my Democrat colleagues like to refer to as ordinary, average Americans.  Suppressing the speech of organizations that speak for individuals would leave millions of those Americans with no voice at all.   

We should eliminate rather than create barriers to participation in the political process.  We should encourage rather than discourage activities by our fellow citizens to influence the election of their leaders.  We should prohibit rather than empower government to control how Americans participate in the political process.  

We should, to return to Justice Brennan's words, strengthen rather than dismantle our national commitment to uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate on public issues.  Making Senate Joint Resolution 19 part of the Constitution would instead make that debate inhibited, weak, and closed. 
As the Supreme Court has recognized, the First Amendment is premised on a mistrust of government power.  Neither the nature of government power nor its impact on individual liberty has changed.  Senate Joint Resolution 19, therefore, proves three things.  It proves that the government’s temptation to control what Americans say and do in the political process is as strong as ever.  It proves that the majority believes it can retain power only by suppressing the liberties of our fellow Americans.  And it proves that the profound national consensus that Justice Brennan described may no longer exist. 
Another irony here is that the majority in what we often call the Senate the world’s greatest deliberative body is trying to stifle the free speech of citizens with whom they disagree.  This is nothing more than election-year misdirection, an attempt to distract attention from the majority’s complete failure to address the real problems facing our nation. 

We should heed the advice of our late colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Ted Kennedy.  In March 1997, this body was debating another proposed constitutional amendment to control political speech.  That measure, I want my colleagues to know, was more narrowly drawn than the one before us today.  It was limited to expenditures supporting or opposing candidates and did not exempt Big Media.

Yet Senator Kennedy rose to oppose it and said: “In the entire history of the Constitution, we have never amended the Bill of Rights, and now is no time to start.  It would be wrong to carve an exception in the First Amendment.  Campaign finance reform is a serious problem, but it does not require that we twist the meaning of the Constitution.”  The Senate voted 38-61 against that proposal and Senator Kennedy’ words apply with even more force today.

The real purpose of Senate Joint Resolution 19 is exactly what America's founders ratified the First Amendment to prevent.  Supporters of this radical proposal apparently believe that freedom itself is the problem.  That view is contrary to the most fundamental principles of this republic, and incompatible with a free society.  Freedom is not the problem, it is the solution.