One Person, One Vote. One Person, One Voice.

Money Overpowers Free Speech  

In line with the idea of "one person, one vote," why should some people and institutions have so much more "free speech" than the average person?

The First Amendment enshrines the right to free speech. According to Dictionary.com, speech is linked to communications from people. So why do we think corporations have the same right to free speech as humans? Corporations can't vote in state and federal elections. Corporations can't be put in jail.

When you give corporations and large groups of people the same First Amendment rights as an individual person, you diminish the rights of individual people. This is especially true when you pervert the concept of free speech to include money as a form of speech, as the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling did.

Anyone can speak in support of a candidate to encourage voters to support that candidate. But how can a person raise their voice to be heard in a media environment where corporations and wealthy people can spend unlimited sums of money to carefully craft messages and blast them across multiple media platforms?  My speech is of less value. 

One person, one vote. Large sums of money should not be allowed to diminish the value of my vote or the value of my speech. The number of people I, as an individual, can reach is limited. With large sums of money from an individual, a corporation, or a large group of people, there is no limit. We don't allow candidates to directly give money or gifts to voters to gain their votes, but we allow large donors the means to overpower my speech by paying for unlimited access to media sources.

The billionaire Elon Musk, for a little over 1% of his net worth, could finance every candidate in every federal election for a year. That is every Republican, Democrat, and independent.

Let's suppose you have a net worth of $100,000. Would you pay $147 to become the BFF of a U.S. president? Elon Musk could easily pay the entire cost of Trump's 2025 campaign (about $1.5 billion) for the equivalent of your $147.

Do you think that is fair? More importantly, do you think that is good for our democracy?

Only voting-age citizens should be able to donate money, goods, or services to politicians running for elected office, and the amount should be limited. It should be an amount that an average voter might be able to give.  It should be no more than a few thousand dollars a year.

I suggest a constitutional amendment to limit the amount of money candidates receive.

How about something like this:

"Only voting-age citizens of the United States may donate money, goods, or services (excluding the value of an individual's voluntary personal services) to candidates running for federal office (President, House, or Senate). Donations must be from one individual to one individual candidate. Groups of citizens may not pool their donations; this includes married individuals. An individual may donate to any number of candidates in any federal election, but the total amount donated in a year, including all donations made to all candidates, shall not exceed..."

Obviously, I am not a constitutional scholar, so that is just a suggestion.

I haven't suggested what the maximum amount should be. I have some thoughts. The amendment should contain a formula to calculate the amount so it could change each year without the need to amend the Constitution later. The amount should be relatively low. Perhaps it could be based on the federal minimum wage, multiplied by the previous year's rate of inflation and then by some multiplier. That way, any non-inflationary increase in the limit would benefit the lowest-paid workers. It would also make it harder to raise the limit substantially without broader economic implications.

I also didn't include state and local elections or other ballot measures, such as bond issues. Those issues should also be addressed. I am more concerned about large sums of money from individuals, corporations, or groups (and yes, that includes unions) being used to influence federal elections, but limits on state and local elections should also be considered. I think $2,500 a year sounds reasonable.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is how much a single individual can contribute to their own election. As mentioned above, Elon Musk could easily pay for his own presidential campaign. Yes, I know he is not eligible to run, but there are more billionaires every year. This gets tricky, but we have a billionaire in the presidency right now. How is that working?

We need to get big money out of elections. 

Don't Listen

This morning Fox News Sunday had an interview with Margie Phelps, a member of and attorney for the Westboro Baptist Church. This is the small group that stages those obnoxious demonstrations near the funerals of American service men and women killed in action.

She recently won a Supreme Court case that affirmed the First Amendment rights of the Westboro Baptist Church to express opinions that most people find to be disgusting.

I agree with the Supreme Court, but Ms. Phelps has given us the antidote to her groups hateful speech. She said that the Supreme Court put a megaphone to the mouth of her tiny church. She is wrong. They didn't do that. They only said that governments could not silence them. Her group has a megaphone only if the news media gives them coverage and we listen.

The answer is to not give these people the attention they crave. They are irrational and delusional. Reason is not going to change them and attention only reinforces their delusions. If no one listens, if no one stages counter protests, if we all change the channel when they are given news coverage, then news organizations will stop covering them . This won't mute their hate or cure their ignorance or diminish their delusional view that they speak for God. They just go back to being a nameless group of kooks no one pays any attention to.

The beauty of our system is that our Constitution prevents governments from deciding which speech should be heard and which should be suppressed. It leaves it to people to listen or not listen and make our own decisions.

I've heard what the members of the Westboro Baptist Church believe and totally reject those ideas. From now on I choose not to listen.

Free Speech. Not Priceless.

I was astounded when courts interpreted the Second Amendment while consciously ignoring the reference in the amendment to militias.

I was appalled when Congress passed a law that destroyed habeas corpus.

Now I'm speechless.

Today the Supreme Court some how decide that corporations, that previously had at least some of the same rights as an individual, actually have the constitutionally protected right to free speech.

And when I say I'm speechless, I'm actually speaking for all of us. We are all speechless. Our individual speech will now be drowned out by unlimited speech from corporations.

Politicians generally do not vote their consciences. They vote to please their constituents and their donors. Now corporate donors are no longer limited in the amount they can funnel to a candidate. Sure, we still have to vote, but the political discussion and process can be bought with huge sums of money. That happens all too much today. Starting tomorrow there are no limits on how much a corporation can spend to buy an election. No politician will be able to get elected without lining up huge sums of money from corporations. They will be bought and you and I are too poor to play in this game.

Corporations are not individuals, even though they may have been granted some of the same rights. They are not citizens. They can't be drafted. They can't serve on a jury. They can't vote. They can't marry (think about that). Or can they? Once they can buy elections, there is no limit to what powers they can give themselves. Their power will only be constrained by other large corporations.

We have been trying for decades to prevent individuals or large groups from buying elections and politicians. That is all gone.

You can imagine dire consequences of this ruling. Maybe we are making too much of this. But if we are correct and this is as bad as we think, once the tipping point is reached and corporations really control Congress, we won't be able to change it back.

I think the solution may be to change the law to make it clear that corporations are not people.