Soapboxes And Satellites

Ever since the architects of America appended a Bill of Rights to their masterpiece Constitution, freedom of belief and speech has stood at the front of the line of our cherished rights in the First Amendment. Our modes of expression have come a long way, from soapboxes to satellites, but the precept remains the same: speech and ideas are protected in this country — even unpopular speech and ideas. Increasingly, the voices we hear loudest in America are the voices amplified by money, and these days the most incessant of those monied voices are political.

In January, the US Supreme Court ruled that speech by corporations and organizations warranted the same protections as speech by individuals and cleared the way for corporations, labor unions, and other vast aggregators of cash and special interest to spend unlimited amounts of money in political campaigns. One result of the ruling was to render unconstitutional Connecticut’s law banning direct contributions by corporations and unions to campaigns for or against political candidates or parties. This election year, with both state and federal offices at stake, these well-heeled special interest groups are topping off their war chests to ensure the volume and frequency of their free speech over the airwaves is not matched by any of the soapbox suckers still operating in the quaint world that believes in a fair fight.

 Connecticut’s campaign finance reformers, having their cause upended by the US Supreme Court, have been trying to respond with legislation that will at least help voters to see the effects of all the special interest money in coming elections. A bill is now under consideration in Hartford that would strengthen disclosure laws to make it hard for unions and corporations to hide their roles in promoting, or attacking, candidates and causes. This would govern state elections only, however. It would be up to Congress to enact similar constraints on corporate influence at the federal level; something that cash-starved incumbent representatives and senators are not likely to do any time soon.

This measure is the least our lawmakers can do help voters make sense of the campaign carnivals to come. We would like to see Connecticut’s legislators do even more and follow Maryland’s lead in trying to ensure that corporate political speech actually reflects the preferences of the shareholders, not just the prevailing priorities in the company’s executive suites. The legislature in that state is working on rules that would require board of director and stockholder approval for independent political expenditures by corporations. We would also favor requiring union bosses to get similar approvals from rank and file union members for their political spending.

We still believe that the free exchange of ideas is the cornerstone of our country’s democratic tradition and expect that the propensity of Americans to speak their minds will ultimately preserve that tradition now and in the future. We worry, however, when our system of laws, in recognizing free speech, hands out soapboxes to some and satellites to others.