Court Rules for Worst Common Denominator
The Supreme Court ruled issue advocacy ads during the last two months of political campaigns are legal, in an expansive view of the First Amendment and an extraordinarily constricted view in the value of democracy. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the 5-4 majority, said, “Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.” That ignores the worst of this ruling. What's worst is someone can establish a 527 organization on October 1st, and the voters would have no right to know anything about anyone involved in the creation of that group until after the election. All the voters would be entitled to know about the motives of the organization is its name.
Let's take a hypothetical: A group could call itself, "Americans for Keeping the Flag Clean", but be financed entirely by white slavers and drug lords. Now, let us say Chief Justice John Roberts decided to run for President (though I doubt he'd take the demotion). The Americans for Keeping the Flag Clean oppose John Roberts, but they don't want to say it's because he's against the free importation and distribution of drugs and sexual slaves. So they run an ad saying "John Roberts killed and ate his own mother. On November 7th, send John Roberts a message we're against motherkilling cannibals," while on TV Hannibal Lecter's face morphs into John Roberts' face. Now that's a "pure" issue advocacy ad...it doesn't ask you to vote for another candidate, but only to keep a political position in mind. Since, as far as I know, there's no truth to that story, the Americans for Keeping the Flag Clean would likely get a hefty fine some time after the election was over, and John Roberts had lost in a wave of public revulsion.
So a bunch of criminals would get to decide who our next President is, and we would only learn who the (ir)responsible parties were after the campaign was over, and their chosen candidate became President. This is the sort of behavior the Supreme Court ruling implicitly embraces. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free speech until it gives people license to yell "Jump" at people standing on a ledge, but this ruling gives those who yell "Jump" a megaphone.
Let's take a hypothetical: A group could call itself, "Americans for Keeping the Flag Clean", but be financed entirely by white slavers and drug lords. Now, let us say Chief Justice John Roberts decided to run for President (though I doubt he'd take the demotion). The Americans for Keeping the Flag Clean oppose John Roberts, but they don't want to say it's because he's against the free importation and distribution of drugs and sexual slaves. So they run an ad saying "John Roberts killed and ate his own mother. On November 7th, send John Roberts a message we're against motherkilling cannibals," while on TV Hannibal Lecter's face morphs into John Roberts' face. Now that's a "pure" issue advocacy ad...it doesn't ask you to vote for another candidate, but only to keep a political position in mind. Since, as far as I know, there's no truth to that story, the Americans for Keeping the Flag Clean would likely get a hefty fine some time after the election was over, and John Roberts had lost in a wave of public revulsion.
So a bunch of criminals would get to decide who our next President is, and we would only learn who the (ir)responsible parties were after the campaign was over, and their chosen candidate became President. This is the sort of behavior the Supreme Court ruling implicitly embraces. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free speech until it gives people license to yell "Jump" at people standing on a ledge, but this ruling gives those who yell "Jump" a megaphone.
