As Institute for Justice campaign finance expert Paul Sherman explains in the video above:

The irony of those protests is that you had groups of people getting together to speak out against a Supreme Court decision that protected the right of people to get together and speak out.

Indeed, people should not lose their right to free speech simply by exercising their right to freely associate.   And when people group together—be it on the steps of a courthouse, in the form of a trade union or as a corporation—they don’t lose their freedom to speak out.

Occupy the Courts protesters also mistakenly believed that the Citizens United ruling held that “money is speech.”  In fact, the Court never said that.  Rather, it ruled correctly that money facilitates speech.  And if the government has the power to control how much money you can spend speaking, then it effectively can control your speech.

Importantly, the law in question in the Citizens United case empowered the government to fine and even imprison ordinary people for engaging in certain types of speech.   The government argued in court that it had the power to ban videos and books.  I don’t believe that many Americans, including the Occupy the Courts protesters, think the government should be in the business of banning books.

Opponents of Citizens United seem particularly upset about the rise of Super PACs—a term used frequently this campaign season, often accompanied with a warning about their dangers.   But the Citizens United ruling only indirectly affected the creation of Super PACs.

Further, Super PACs actually help to level the playing field.

Before Super PACs, wealthy people could spend as much as they wanted voicing their opinions in campaigns.  For instance, Bill Gates could spend $1 billion on political ads, but if two people of more modest means decided to pool their money together to speak out, they would be limited to spending just $10,000 total.

In a case called SpeechNow.org v FEC, litigated by the Institute for Justice and the Center for Competitive Politics, the government ruled that the $10,000 limit was unconstitutional, giving rise to Super PACs.   That is, Super PACs simply allow ordinary Americans to do what wealthy people have been allowed to do for decades.

And while Super PACs may help people to speak more effectively this election season, ultimately it will be voters who decide which candidates to support. As Paul Sherman makes clear:

The real question raised by Super PACs is, are voters going to be allowed to decide for themselves which messages they want to consider before they cast their ballot, or is the government going to decide that for them?

Citizens United correctly recognized that the First Amendment protects the right of voters to think for themselves.  Moreover, by taking censorship of political speech off the table, Citizens United allows us to focus on the real problem with the political process:

It’s not that there’s too much money in politics, but that politicians control too much money.  As long as government is in the business of spending trillions of dollars and influencing countless aspects of the economy and our lives, special interests will inevitably be drawn towards them.

The only solution, then, is to shrink government.

No longer having a mind, I’m putting my intellect to work on making Liberal policies work with maximum impact.  I hope Big Government readers can forgive me.  Your close-mindedness and hate speech cannot hold a candle to doing what is right.

Healthcare

As a Resurrected Liberal, I strongly endorse government intervention to protect people, primarily from themselves.  People have shown they are not capable of personal responsibility or making good choices.  They eat too much.  They drink too much.  They are too stupid to know who the best candidate is.   Therefore, I endorse a Universal Health Care option that, among other things, will tackle several epidemics in our country.

Obesity, for example, is running rampant.  The First Lady has made it her project to get people to eat healthy and trim down.  The problem is that a lot of people just won’t listen, and they are going to eat bad food no matter what they get told, and no matter how often they get the USDA Food Pyramid shoved in their face.

I propose a tax be instituted on all people who exceed their ideal body weight, as determined by the Department of Health.   The tax should really hit fat people hard, because once their pocketbook lightens, they will, too.  I suggest a $1000 tax per pound per year per person.  When they visit their doctor for their free health care, the doctor will record their weight on a standardized scale that a government factory will produce, populated with unionized government employees at a flat salary of $90,000 per year, plus a pension that will have contributions made on their behalf as part of their employment.

People who exceed their ideal weight by more than 25 pounds two years in a row will be required to attend an Obesity Clinic, where they will be put on a strict diet and exercise regimen.   The clinic will be part of free universal health care.   It will be paid for with the Obesity Tax, and from the resulting health care cost savings that will come from a decline in obesity rates.

This is just one of many ideas for my universal health care plan.

Corporate Profits

Because corporations, especially oil companies, are indeed making obscene profits, it’s time they shared that wealth.  In the past four quarters, ExxonMobil made $36 billion.  They simply do not need that much money.  I propose a cap on all corporate profits.  No matter what the industry is, they will be limited to a profit of $150 million per year.  Any excess profits will be distributed among the families and individuals in the lowest quintile of income.  In addition, CEO’s will be limited to making $1 million per year.   There is no reason anyone should need to make more than that.  A million dollars is plenty.  I’d be thrilled to make a million dollars, and after working for five years, I honestly wouldn’t know how to spend it all — although if I really did have that much money, I’d probably spend it on Subway sandwiches so as to keep my body weight below the federal limit.   Any company that makes more than $150 million three years in a row is obviously not trying hard enough to fail.  The CEO will be replaced with a government appointee to tamp profits down to fair levels.

Campaign Finance Reform

From now on, only individuals can donate to a campaign, and no more than $250 per person. To donate, you must first register as a lobbyist.  Candidates cannot use personal funds.  Corporations are no longer individuals.  They are not allowed to contribute, period. The one exception to this rule is for unions.  Unions may contribute as much as they want because the workers are being screwed in this country.  Unions have every right to help get pro-worker candidates elected because corporations have gone too far and it’s time to play catch up.   However, only federally approved candidates may run.   Since restrictions on who may run will require a Constitutional Amendment, the President will be able to use his Emergency Powers to suspend those rules in order to encourage all Americans to run for office.  Nobody will be excluded, including felons, cop-killing-supporting rappers, those on the TSA “no-fly” list, Gitmo detainees, or dead people (dead people have been elected before, so it would be discriminatory to prohibit them).

Elections

If you are in the United States, you can vote in any election.   It doesn’t matter if you are a citizen or not.  You do not have to prove you are a citizen or that you are here legally.  To protect against Diebold or any other company messing with machine vote counts, each person’s name and who they voted for will be written on each ballot.  Furthermore, if you cannot make it to the polls because you are overseas, all you have to do is write a letter to the FEC with your name, state that you are a citizen, and write in your vote.  It will be counted no matter what.   A new division within the Department of Homeland Security will provide training for special fraud prevention specialists, so that Evengelical Christians and other terrorists from other nations will not be able to fraudulently vote.

Fairness Doctrine

It is totally unfair that Conservatives dominate talk radio.   They shouldn’t be allowed to dominate the airwaves.  Because what they do is not free speech, but hate speech, the Fairness Doctrine will require every station to broadcast the same number of hours of Liberal talk radio in any given day.  However, because Liberal talk radio has been so under-represented over the years, Conservative talk will be limited to the hours between 7 PM and 7 AM.  Radio stations will be required to reallocate salaries they pay to Conservative hosts equally to Liberal hosts.  If enough Liberal hosts cannot be found, then those hours will either be filled with re-runs of Countdown with Keith Olbermann or lectures from Saul Alinsky, Noam Chomsky, or equivalent.  It’s up to the Station Programmer to decide, and a Federal Station Programmer will be hired for each station.  They will be also be paid for by reduced Conservative talk show host salaries. and will be required to have a background in juggling to qualify.

Energy Policy

This is critical.   A phaseout of the importation of foreign oil will begin immediately, with all imports ceasing in two years.   A permanent ban on oil drilling within our borders will be put in place immediately, and those areas declared protected National Parks.   People will expect gas prices to go up because of restricted supply, but they will not because of a federally-mandated gas price ceiling.  We cannot have the oil companies profiting from this policy.   Once the oil phaseout begins, the federal government will nationalize all auto makers, and begin the manufacturing of 100% electric vehicles.  The plan will be paid for by having armies of tow trucks cart away everyone’s car from their home, at no charge.  The cars will be delivered to federally-approved junkyards where they will be crushed into scrap metal.  The metal will be sold only to Muslim dictatorships or Jihadist groups, as a way to facilitate greater dialogue and understanding through trade, just as the world did centuries ago.  Private companies will not be permitted to buy the scrap metal.  Within 2 years, every car will be electric.  Everyone will be required to have an electric socket in their driveway, standardized and provided by the federal government.   Anyone may use anyone else’s electric socket in an emergency.  All vehicles will be limited to three wheels.  This will get people to drive slower, like the Canadians, and reduce road rage.   Modifications to this design must be approved through a special waiver process, overseen by each city’s Parking Enforcement Division and each state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, which will be granted expanded powers.

Tax Policy

Because the rich have earned their money at the expense of the poor, the new marginal tax rate will go up to 50% for amounts earned over $150,000, 75% over $250,000, and 90% for those earnings over one million dollars.   Again, nobody needs that much money.  If you are earning that much, you are taking salary away from poorer people.  A family of four can easily live on $100,000, and more than that is depriving those living below the poverty line.   For estates, 100% taxation will be the new policy.   You may not hand down any wealth to your heirs, period.  Once you die, the money belongs to the country that helped you earn it, and will be distributed to those living below the poverty line.  The goal is to re-create the middle-class.  This is not redistribution of wealth.  It’s simple fairness.  Any family that attempts to bury a deceased person’s wealth with the deceased will be charged with a felony, forfeit 100% of the deceased’s wealth, and be charged a surtax on their next tax return equal to 29.38% of their net worth.

The Budget

The federal budget is hereby abolished.  It’s never realistic, it never gets followed, and Congress spends way too much arguing over something that doesn’t work.  We didn’t even have one last year.  Government can now spend whatever is necessary to keep the country running, with no “debt limit”.  The President may, be executive order, call for additional money to be printed with no maximum.  If inflation should appear, the government will institute price controls on all products until inflation goes away.

Conclusion

I believe this is a reasonable set of policies that America can live with. Please share your thoughts in the Comments section.

Among Common Cause’s, well, common causes, are campaign finance reform, net neutrality, outlawing the filibuster, promoting cap and trade, and in this particular case, herding a mass of protesters outside a nearby hotel to yell at Charles and David Koch for being conservative and rich.

Unfortunately several “haves” have missed the memo that you’re not to be both rich and conservative at the same time, and that bankrolling your pet causes is an extra no-no if you’re conservative—thus exempting left-wing billionaire philanthropists George Soros (from whom Common Cause has received $2 million over the past eight years) Peter Lewis, John Doerr, Julian Robertson, Nicolas Berggruen, and many others from being yelled at too.

At the morning panel event featuring UCI Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, activist Jim Hightower, Center for American Progress journalist and “Koch Brothers expert” Lee Fang, California Nurses Association co-president DeAnn McEwan, and President Obama’s former green jobs czar Van Jones, we were forewarned of the impending demise of both the environment and democracy at the hands of corporate lobbyists and their government shills.

There was eerily no mention of GE, AEP, Goldmann Sachs, Pfizer, Aetna, Alcoa, Xerox, Google, Motorola, IBM, or several other corporate giants who profit at taxpayer expense via their K Street connections to the Obama White House as well as the very economic and regulatory policies they lobby that these Common Cause panelists commonly endorse. But I’m sure that’s only because no one wanted to point out the obvious. Right?

We were then ushered outside to the parking lot across from the hotel in which the Koch brothers were holding a meeting, whereupon we were encouraged to yell at the building, decrying not only the Kochs, but Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia for their Citizens United ruling. Oh, and Fox News while we were at it.

We were joined by at least half a dozen busloads of public sector union members and common demonstrators from AFFCE, The Ruckus Society, 350, Greenpeace, Code Pink, and the Progressive Democrats of America, among others, without whose valuable contributions to the yelling, the rally would’ve been just a lousy bust. Video camera in hand, I purposely engaged them to get beyond their programmed talking points, only to find some rather colorful agenda items – particularly for Justice Thomas.

In post-Tucson America, where for the past few weeks a chorus of voices on the left have amplified their attacks on the “racist tea party,” “racist conservatives,” “racist Republicans,” and their “violent, irresponsible rhetoric” to the degree of accomplice-to-murder accusations, I figured a left-wing rally such as this would also be a demonstration of the left’s ideal, self-proclaimed rhetorical composure.

And having done extensive video coverage interviewing demonstrators in over fifty tea parties in forty-five cities in twenty-five states yet finding a total of zero instances of the “racist” and “violent” stigmas the left relentlessly assures us are true, I certainly didn’t expect to find almost every imaginable instance at one single “progressive” rally. But who was I to make presumptions?

So if on top of perpetuating the perennial narrative of the exclusively right-wing corporatist machine, “progressives” want to further their accusations of alleged predominant “racism” and “violence-baiting rhetoric” in the conservative movement, then game on.

In a unanimous decision on Tuesday, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Colorado’s disclosure laws for grassroots political groups.  This is a big deal.  As the Associated Press put it, “The issue is ripe for an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The federal appellate court held that Karen and her neighbors in the tiny subdivision of Parker North, Colo., should not have been forced to register with the government and comply with burdensome campaign finance laws simply for opposing a ballot issue involving the annexation of their neighborhood.

I wrote previously at Big Government that Karen and her neighbors opposed an effort to annex their town into a neighboring city because it would raise their taxes without providing them benefits.  So they printed up fliers and yard signs.  And then they got sued.

Under what basis?  Colorado’s campaign finance laws, which state that any group of individuals that spends over $200 magically becomes an “issue committee” that is forced to register with the state.  Further, they had to track and report all their “contributions” and “expenditures” and disclose the identities of anyone who gave them money.

The result?  People took down their yard signs and stopped passing out fliers.

In 2008, a federal court upheld the lawsuit against Karen and her neighbors while admitting that Colorado’s campaign finance laws “had the effect of stifling political speech in violation of the First Amendment.”  The Institute for Justice appealed and, on Tuesday, secured victory.

Federal Judge Harris L. Hartz wrote in Tuesday’s opinion:

The average citizen cannot be expected to master on his or her own the many campaign financial-disclosure requirements set forth in Colorado’s constitution, the Campaign Act, and the Secretary of State’s Rules Concerning Campaign and Political Finance.

Increasing numbers of people are coming to realize that the burdens of campaign finance laws are enough to  silence speakers.  Consider a recent study by campaign finance expert Dr. Jeffrey Milyo, Campaign Finance Red Tape.  He asked 255 people to comply with Colorado’s registration and disclosure laws.  Guess how many managed to figure it out?

Not one.

The average score was just 41 percent.  In real life, each person could have been subject to fines and penalties.  After sifting through the mounds of confusing red tape, the participants felt that the campaign finance laws were “Worse than the IRS!” and had the effect of discouraging involvement in politics.

The bottom line is that the only thing Americans should need in order to speak out about politics is an opinion.   The right to talk and participate in local politics is at the core of what the First Amendment was designed to protect.  Campaign finance laws don’t just affect politicians—they restrict everybody’s speech, silencing the grassroots through red tape, regulations and punishment for speaking.

Thankfully, the judges in Karen’s lawsuit were engaged and took their job of protecting rights seriously.  As IJ President Chip Mellor said:

This is yet another example of an important judicial trend the Institute for Justice has advocated since our founding—that of judicial engagement.  Judges are becoming rightfully more engaged in defending vital rights and striking down laws that exceed constitutionally enshrined limits on legislative powers.

Bookmark IJ’s free speech blog, and join our conversation at facebook, twitter and You Tube.

The site, which has the address makenolaw.org, empowers grassroots activists from around the country that are standing up and saying no to unconstitutional attacks on free speech coming in the guise of campaign finance reform.  The site explains all the latest news and events going on in this increasingly complex area of law.  All of the writers are First Amendment attorneys and experts at the Institute for Justice (IJ)—the libertarian law firm dedicated to striking down campaign finance laws in state and federal courts.

The unfortunate reality is this:  Campaign finance laws are a way to regulate speech and silence speakers.  And they have seriously negative impacts on everyday Americans.

Consider Karen Sampson of Parker North, Colorado:

Karen and her neighbors opposed an effort to annex their town into a neighboring city because it would raise their taxes without providing them benefits.  So they printed up fliers and yard signs.  And then they got sued.

Under what basis?  Colorado’s campaign finance laws, which state that any group of individuals that spend over $200 magically become an “issue committee” that is forced to register with the state.  Further, they must track and report all their “contributions” and “expenditures” and disclose the identities of anyone who gives them money.

The result?  People took down their yard signs and stopped passing out fliers.

In 2008, a federal court upheld the lawsuit against Karen and her neighbors while admitting that Colorado’s campaign finance laws “had the effect of stifling political speech in violation of the First Amendment.”  The Institute for Justice appealed and is waiting for a decision.

In Seattle, Pat Murakami is fighting campaign finance laws that threaten grassroots activists with fines up to $10,000 for every act of free speech:

Pat heads up a diverse group of individuals that work together to fight eminent domain abuse.  She says that all the campaign finance laws do is “limit the political process to lobbyists and insiders.”  Moreover, they threaten her group’s very existence:

“For a volunteer organization like us, fighting to preserve our neighborhood is difficult and expensive enough as it is.  My organization cannot afford the time and lawyers necessary to correctly comply with Washington’s incomprehensible and complex law.”

36 states in America now use campaign finance laws to silence activism just like Pat’s.  And as bad as Washington state is, the situation is far worse on the east coast.  In New York such efforts are criminal, threatening people like Pat with four years in jail and several thousand dollars in fines—the exact same punishment handed out to arsonists.

Down south, campaign finance laws treat activists like Pat the same as people who kidnap children:  Alabama law says $30,000 in fines and 20 years behind bars.  [For more statistics, check out the report Mowing Down the Grassroots.]

The bottom line is that free speech on political matters is vital to our form of government.  And the right to talk about and participate in local politics is at the core of what the First Amendment was designed to protect.  Campaign finance laws don’t just affect politicians.  They restrict everybody’s speech, silencing the grassroots through red tape, regulations and punishment for speaking.

That is why we need to work together—which is where the new free speech site comes in. According to IJ campaign finance expert Paul Sherman:

“We are really excited about Congress Shall Make No Law.  It’s so important to bring the community of activists together.   For everyone interested in helping to protect free speech, there are four quick things you can do right now:  Bookmark, read, comment and share.”

That is:

1. Bookmark makenolaw.org
2. Read a few posts
3. Comment on them
4. Share with others

Sherman continued, “Our success in bringing together and educating people on free speech really depends on our activists.  Working together, with their help and support, we can save free speech from the regulators.”

The only thing Americans should need in order to speak out about politics is an opinion.  Join the free speech community and help IJ—along with grassroots activists from around the country—preserve our most cherished liberties.

No recent Supreme Court ruling have evoked more liberal fury than Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a campaign-finance case involving government censorship of a political documentary called Hillary: The Movie. The Federal Election Commission prevented the anti-Hillary Clinton film from being shown on television just before the 2008 Democratic primaries, a decision that was upheld by lower courts. Siding with The First Amendment, the Court struck down laws regulating independent political advertising by for-profit and non-profit corporations before an election even as they reaffirmed rules about disclosure and disclosures for ads and against direct corporate giving to candidates.

Critics fear that corporations will now overwhelm the political marketplace with commercials and advertisements that will program citizens to vote for whatever agenda “the corprations” want at a given moment.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann railed against the decision, calling it “a Supreme Court-sanctioned murder of what little democracy is left in this democracy” and comparing it to the notorious Dred Scott decision, which ruled that  had no rights under the Constitution. His fellow corporate media host at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, exclaimed, “If you are a regular person who has ever made a campaign donation before, forget about ever having to do that again. What’s the point?”

Cyberlaw theorist Lawrence Lessig has called for a consitutional amendment to roll back the Citizens United ruling and President Barack Obama called out the Supreme Court during his 2010 State of the Union address, proclaiming to a standing ovation:

The Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.

Is there any truth to some hyperbolic, doomsday scenarios? In a word, no. The Citizens United ruling increases freedom of political speech, not simply for powerful, politically connected corporations like Citigroup, AIG, and the companies that run The New York Times and other media outlets, but for small-pocketed nonprofits such as Citizens United too. If you want to get bent out of shape about something, direct your ire at a massive and constantly growing government that has its hands in virtually every aspect of economic and social life in America.

“3 Reasons Not to Sweat The Citizens United Ruling” was written and produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie, who also hosts.

Approximately 3.30 minutes. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions.

Subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube channel and received automatic notifications when new material goes online.

…[w]hen Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.

“Censorship” is a dirty word in America, and that is why the restrictions at issue in our case were cloaked in the guise of “campaign finance reform.”  But the fact remains that any restrictions on political speech, especially those that criminalize such speech, send us down a very slippery and very dangerous slope.

Last March, our government argued in court that it has the Constitutional authority to ban books that mention a candidate for federal office.  The government later retracted that statement, but is there any doubt that such a statement never would have been made if there had not been 100 years of progressively more intrusive restrictions on political speech preceding it?    Had the Court not acted, what was to prevent the government from asserting that authority over the internet, which does not have the benefit of two centuries of tradition and jurisprudence protecting it?

There is also the practical issue of the relatively unremarked and inconvenient fact that 28 states permit corporate political speech during elections.  Virginia, which recently held a gubernatorial election, is one such example.  If , as many argue, corporate political speech is corrupting by definition, where was the impropriety in that election?  In fact, I would challenge opponents of our case to compare the corruption levels in states prohibiting corporate and union expenditures with states that allow it.  I think that such a comparison would demonstrate that corporate speech is not inherently corrupting.

Finally, as the Court acknowledged, the position that corporations cannot engage in political speech has a fatal logical flaw.  Almost every major media outlet in the country is owned by a corporation and most of them advocate for or against candidates via endorsements, opinion columns, or politically-oriented programming.  Why should General Electric, which owns MSNBC, be permitted to use its nearly unlimited resources to influence elections, while I, who made Hillary The Movie using corporate funds for roughly .03% of the budget, could be put in prison for airing the documentary?

This issue has little to do with corporate speech.  The real issue is whether or not we are willing to take a giant leap down the slippery slope towards government regulation of the content of books, movies, or even the internet.  As Justice Kennedy wrote yesterday, “For me, the choice between putting up with corporate ads or jailing citizens for political speech is a simple one.  Thankfully for all Americans, the Supreme Court agrees.