Obama and the Dems seek to silence critics in elections
President Obama and leading Democrats are pushing the House to vote on a controversial campaign-finance bill designed as an end run around the recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down efforts restricting the rights of business to run political ads. The idea, conservatives say, is to silence critics heading into the midterm elections.
By: David A. Patten at Newsmax.com
President Obama and leading Democrats are pushing the House to vote on a controversial campaign-finance bill that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is blasting as “unconstitutional” and a “desperate attempt” by Democrats to grab a political advantage in the upcoming midterm elections.
The bill, called the Disclose Act, appears to be a blatant effort by Democrats in Congress to find a way around the Supreme Court’s recent Citizens United v. FEC ruling, which struck down provisions of McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reforms that severely restricted the rights of corporations and nonprofit groups to run political advertising.
The Supreme Court ruled such restrictions violate the First Amendment right to free speech.
But this new effort includes a series of provisions seeking to disclose donors involved in political advertising as well as saddling private business with boatloads of paperwork to discourage their involvement in the political process.
The constitutional issues involved make it all the more surprising that some members of Congress want to try a legislative maneuver to evade the ruling, says Hans Von Spakovsky, senior legal scholar for The Heritage Foundation.
“Members of Congress have the same obligation that the president does, and that judges have, to uphold the Constitution,” Von Spakovsky tells Newsmax.
“That means they should not be sponsoring, pushing, or voting in favor of bills that very clearly are unconstitutional. This particular law has many provisions, especially based on the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, that violate the First Amendment. They’re trying to restrict political speech, and they’re trying to restrict political advocacy.”
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