Government Censorship of Political Free Speech

by Janine Hansen (Nevada)

"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech ..." These sacred words vouched safe to us by the blood of our forefathers, emblazoned in the First Amendment of the Constitution and applied to all citizens in the Fourteenth Amendment are under insidious attack.

Under the guise of "campaign finance reform" our precious right of free speech has been seriously eroded.

If our Nevada Legislators had been asked to vote for an "incumbent protection bill" how different the nearly unanimous vote in 1997 on SB 215 so-called campaign finance reform might have been.

So-called campaign finance laws allow the wealthy to spend as much as they want to influence public opinion, but if you are of limited means your participation in free speech will be restricted, monitored and reported to the government censors.

"... Government is inherently untrustworthy when it comes to regulating political speech, and this tendency to use government power to silence political criticism and stifle competition is a major reason why we have the First Amendment." Professor Bradley A. Smith, Wall Street Journal.

The stark reality of Tiananmen Square is a glaring example of government regulated speech.

Individual citizens do not have unlimited resources. so we join together in cooperative and collaborative efforts called campaigns, political parties and political action committees to exercise the right of political free speech. Let’s not forget that the exercise of free speech in the age of the television takes money.

Interestingly, the powerful, often self-serving media are the number one advocates of limiting the citizens’ right to political free speech. They want to clean up the dirty world of politics.

But ... free speech, no matter how besmirched it might be, comes even before the freedom of the press in the First Amendment. Would the press sit back and allow the same kind of intrusive restrictions on their politicking. Who would dare to require an editorial board to submit a report to the Secretary of State estimating the dollar value of an endorsement by the newspaper. What red-blooded reporter would acquiesce to supplying a monetary figure for the per inch value of stories on each political candidate to the government censors. NONE!

Why does the media want unchallenged supremacy, beyond the rights of the citizens to determine who shall govern us? Can this be a power grab by the press to control the election process rather than the feigned altruism of cleaning up campaigns?

Campaign finance reform has not worked. It has not made corrupt politicians more honest, or apathetic voters more likely to vote. In fact, since the Federal Election Campaign Act and the state laws that followed, the influence of special interests has grown, voter turnout has fallen and incumbents have become tougher to dislodge.

What is the solution? Let's encourage the maximum participation of citizens by eliminating government's role in censoring free speech. Let's cut the media's growing political thought monopoly by stimulating competition and debate in the arena of political ideas. Let's not be foolish enough to depend on government censors and the biased media to protect us. They won't. In fact, government represents the greatest threat to our liberty. Indeed, politically correct campaign finance reform laws stripped naked are nothing more than an insidious threat to our sacred right of freedom of speech. Let's try freedom instead.