SpeechNow.org Goes to Court

SpeechNow.org, the anti-campaign finance restriction group spotlighted by Jacob Sullum two months ago, has been denied permission to organize as a 527 group—a distinction that would have let the group raise more money for the cause. The next step:

Represented by the Institute for Justice and the Center for Competitive Politics, SpeechNow.org, along with members and supporters, will file a federal lawsuit today challenging the campaign finance law that requires SpeechNow.org to become a "political committee" in order to advocate for or against candidates. So that SpeechNow.org can begin its advocacy as soon as possible, IJ and CCP will request a preliminary injunction and ask that an expedited hearing on that request be scheduled within 20 days.

It's a good fight, and the incredibly broken FEC—which is basically shut down right now since it's short a member—would need awfully tortured legal reasoning to come out unscathed. Obviously, I'm betting on the FEC.

Comments

[Nick]

"short a member"

I'll take that job. A libertarian on that commission would be nice.

[T]

Yay! Can we have another argument with some jackhole insisting that campaign finance reform isn't an infringement of First Amendment rights, just because SCOTUS and Congress got together and said so?

[Taktix?]

Yay! Can we have another argument with some jackhole insisting that campaign finance reform isn't an infringement of First Amendment rights, just because SCOTUS and Congress got together and said so?

Don't forget the POTUS had to sign it.

When I asked Santa for a three-some fuck-job, this is not what I meant...

[T]

Don't forget the POTUS had to sign it.

Yeah. Somewhere recently I was reading an essay decrying the current tendency of legislators and executives passing and signing blatantly unconstitutional bullshit and letting the courts decide the issue. It's an abdication of the responsibility you accept when you take the oath of office, and makes us all less free. Us normal peons citizens still have to deal with the law until it gets successfully litigated.

[Robert]

Why doesn't someone just solicit personal gifts, and then spend hir own money as s/he chooses? As long as there's no quid pro quo, there's no committee.

[T]

Why doesn't someone just solicit personal gifts, and then spend hir own money as s/he chooses?

Because they can't afford to pay income tax on the gifts themselves?

[Robert]

At what point do gifts (already taxed once as income) become income to somebody else?

And if this really is a problem, why not take the opposite tack of turning it into a business? You want to advertise for or against a policy? Just open an advertising agency, and sell such advertising. The people who would've been your donors become your customers. And you're taxed only on your profit, which may be 0. And if it's greater than 0, I'm sure you won't complain.

[bigbigslacker]

http://www.tmz.com/tmz_main_video?titleid=1417315744

That is the kind of speech that needs protecting. (threadjack)

[T]

Oh, this is even funnier. My recollection was faulty. The recipient does not owe taxes on the gift. The donor may owe a federal gift tax.

So if you give away the money you already made and got taxed on, the feds will tax you again.

BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'm sorry, I have to laugh or I'd be downtown at the federal building with a pack of matches, a bucket of gasoline, and a rifle.

[Bryan]

Can we have another argument with some jackhole insisting that campaign finance reform isn't an infringement of First Amendment rights, just because SCOTUS and Congress got together and said so?

I prefer debates where armchair constitutional scholars who opine on the constitutionality of a law that they haven't read and cases that they haven't read or don't understand.

[Bryan]

Notwithstanding you lack of understanding of constitutional law, T, we are actually in agreement on this one. This interpretation will be overturned. As it should be.