Bradley Smith writes for National Review Online about the importance of protecting political speech.
Here’s a thought experiment: What percentage of your fellow citizens would have to vote against one of your constitutional rights before it ceased to be a right? Fifty-one percent? Seventy-five? Ninety? I suggest that no such threshold exists. A constitutional right, by definition, is not subject to a vote. …
… We’re told that free speech absolutists are tested most by speech so ugly that many wish it would simply disappear: a racist screed, a disturbing work of art, a video most of us would rather never see.
But those fringe cases are the easy ones. Courts have repeatedly affirmed that offensive and hateful expression enjoys the same constitutional protection as any other speech. The stakes are also much lower, because the functioning of our democracy does not depend on fringe speech.
By contrast, the harder cases, which campaign finance law keeps foisting upon us, do not concern profane or offensive speech. They concern speech that is organized, often well-funded, and capable of persuading the electorate. This form of speech lies at the heart of the First Amendment. The importance of campaign speech is precisely why those who disagree with particular messages want to regulate, control, or suppress it.
Proponents of increased regulation insist that limits on political spending are not restrictions on speech at all, but “good government” measures designed to preserve “democracy” and prevent “corruption.” “Money isn’t speech,” the argument goes.
Yet pamphlets, television ads, and canvassing all cost money. A law that prohibits spending money to purchase or manufacture a hunting rifle would violate the Second Amendment, just as a law that prohibits spending money to build churches or publish Bibles would violate the right to freedom of religion, and a law that prohibits paying a lawyer would violate the right to counsel. In the same way, a law that caps how much you may contribute to a super PAC is, functionally, a law that caps how much you may say.
