Thursday, October 31, 2013
State courts cracking down on overreaching campaign finance laws
George Will has a column in the Washington Post, p.
A17, this Halloween, “State courts are restoring free speech”. He is specifically talking about state laws
that inhibit citizens’ use of their own money to influence the outcome of state
and local elections, including public policy or state constitution referendums. The link is here.
Let’s go back for a moment to the Ciitizen’s United
v. Federal Election Commission case, decided in 2010, with the opinion summary
here. The Court wrote “The First Amendment does
not permit laws that force speakers to retain a campaign finance attorney,
conduct demographic marketing research, or seek declaratory rulings before
discussing the most salient political issues of the day.” See more about the CU
group in my review of “Hillary, the Movie”, March 25, 2009 on the Movies blog.
The op-ed discusses cases in Mississippi and
Arizona. The Mississippi case had
involved a desire of voters to weak the state’s power of eminent domain.
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