In the News
The Post and Courier: S.C. not looking at raising campaign contribution limits
By Robert Behre
During the past year, Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wyoming either raised or eliminated various campaign contribution limits. Vermont increased its contribution limits in January, and Oklahoma may pass them this year.
Of those nine, five at least doubled their limits, he said.
Keating said since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling allowed trade associations, corporations, nonprofit groups, and labor unions to spend independently on candidates without limit, candidates have felt they need to raise their limits to have greater control over the debate.
“Political parties and candidates are trying to speak out in elections, but it’s like they have one hand tied behind their back,” he said. “A lot of it is just being realistic.”
CCP
ICYMI: Amending the First Amendment: The Udall Proposal is Poorly Drafted, Intellectually Unserious, and Extremely Dangerous to Free Speech
The Senate Judiciary Committee will soon hold a hearing on S.J. Res. 19, a constitutional amendment to restrict First Amendment rights proposed by Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and sponsored by 41 other senators. Senate Democratic leaders have indicated they plan to bring the measure to a vote on the Senate floor. This report analyzes the constitutional amendment proposal and explains its many glaring issues.
Amending the First Amendment
Roll Call: Reid, McConnell to Testify at Campaign Finance First Amendment Hearing
By Niels Lesniewski
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are expected to make a highly unusual appearance, testifying before the Judiciary Committee next week on the issue of political donations and freedom of speech.
The committee announced Saturday that the Nevada Democrat and Kentucky Republican are scheduled to testify on the same panel at Tuesday’s hearing to consider a Constitutional amendment regarding the applicability of the First Amendment’s protections of free speech to campaign spending.
That McConnell would seek to testify should come as no surprise. He’s long been a leading advocate of unmitigated political speech, including money. He once led a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission seeking to nullify the campaign finance overhaul law known as McCain-Feingold.
WSJ: The Democratic Assault on the First Amendment
By Ted Cruz
We have seen President Obama publicly rebuke the Supreme Court for protecting free speech in Citizens United v. FEC; the Obama IRS inquire of citizens what books they are reading and what is the content of their prayers; the Federal Communications Commission proposing to put government monitors in newsrooms; and Sen. Harry Reid regularly slandering private citizens on the Senate floor for their political speech.
But just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it does. Senate Democrats have promised a vote this year on a constitutional amendment to expressly repeal the free-speech protections of the First Amendment.
You read that correctly. Forty-one Democrats have signed on to co-sponsor New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall’s proposed amendment to give Congress plenary power to regulate political speech. The text of the amendment says that Congress could regulate “the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to federal elections.” The amendment places no limitations whatsoever on Congress’s new power.
Las Vegas Review Journal: Money talks
Editorial
But Democrats have another explanation for the harm they’ve inflicted on the middle class: Super-rich donors have bought government and rigged the economy to their benefit at the expense of working stiffs. This conspiratorial nonsense plays right with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s tirades against the billionaire Koch brothers. Democrats know their plan has no chance of becoming the 28th Amendment. They want to distract and score points with voters, and nothing more.
However, if anything, the electorate should be repulsed by the proposal because it’s an incumbent-protection scheme. Giving elected officials control over the speech of their adversaries is a dangerous idea. Americans should remain free to ruthlessly criticize their government — and blow a fortune doing so, if they wish.
RNLA: Harry’s Dirty Amendment
By Paul Jossey
The amendment would not only overturn the despised (andmisunderstood) Citizens United v. FEC but also Buckley v. Valeo and every other consequential campaign finance case in between. It would completely abolish the citizenry’s ability to speak about elections and candidates except within tightly controlled confines approved by Congress. It is in short, the Anti-First Amendment.
Though no one thinks it has any chance of ratification, its value lies in its brazen display of totalitarianism. What of liberty and freedom when one has power to amass and hold?
Reid’s boogeymen, Charles and David Koch, do speak to those American values. Reid responds by lambasting them on the Senate floor;over 130 times this year alone.
Patriot Post: The Forced Amendment: Dems Push for Constitutional Re-Do
By Tony Perkins
Senator Chuck Schumer is a lot of things – but James Madison, he is not. Don’t tell that to the New York Democrat, who, along with Sen. Mark Udall (D-N.M.), thinks he understands freedom better than the author of America’s Bill of Rights. Two hundred twenty-three years after the First Amendment went into effect, Senate liberals are trying to put an expiration date on political speech. While most Americans were firing up their grills last weekend, Sen. Udall was lighting a match under Senate Democrats to get a vote on his Joint Resolution 19. And if it’s successful, the National Archives will need more than bomb-proofing to protect America’s founding documents.
State and Local
California –– Bustle: San Jose gives out free weed to voters with medical marijuana cards, and no one’s quire sure if it’s legal
By Nuzha Nuseibeh
In an effort to encourage California residents to cast ballots in the state primary elections next week, certain pot clubs in San Jose will be giving voters free weed, as long as they have a medical marijuana card, and can prove that they’ve voted with a ballot stub or an “I Voted” sticker. The effort, “Weed for Votes,” has been organized by the Silicon Valley Cannabis Coalition, in the hopes of getting some pot-friendly politicians elected. Sound dubiously legal? It might be.
New York –– NY Times: Trial Begins for Queens Democrat Charged With Bribery, Extortion and Fraud
By Joseph Berger
Malcolm A. Smith wanted to be the mayor of New York City so badly that he, a Democratic Queens state senator and onetime Senate majority and minority leader, was willing to run as a Republican in a city where Democrats hold a 6-1 edge.
That quixotic ambition — some might call it especially foolhardy since he was not a deep-pocketed billionaire like Michael R. Bloomberg — will land him in a federal courtroom in White Plains on Monday, when he goes on trial on charges of bribery, extortion and wire and mail fraud.
New York –– NY Times: As Antics Subside, Both Cuomo and the Left Claim the Last Hurrah
By Thomas Kaplan and Susanne Craig
In the end, liberals were exulting in what they believed would be the start of a tectonic shift in New York politics, as the governor agreed to abandon his Republican allies in the State Senate and throw his weight behind electing fellow Democrats. In turn, the Working Families Party agreed to support Mr. Cuomo.
“I believe the world starts to turn now,” Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City told a rollicking crowd at the convention of the Working Families Party, a group of liberal activists and labor unions that had been divided over whether to support the governor’s re-election.
