Sen. Ted Cruz has an excellent article on the proposal to amend the First Amendment in today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.  At the end of the article, he quotes the late-Sen. Ted Kennedy as saying “In the entire history of the Constitution, we have never amended the Bill of Rights, and now is no time to start.”

That’s a great quote and we hope that if the Senate does vote on SJR 19 to amend the First Amendment that senators will keep that thought in mind.  The complete text of Sen. Kennedy’s speech can be found here.

There is also a new study published today from The Heritage Foundation that analyzes the proposed amendment.  Here’s an excerpt:

Supporters of this amendment claim that restricting the amount of money that may be spent on political speech and activity is not the same as limiting speech, but as the Supreme Court has recognized, bans on spending are indeed bans on speech. No one with any experience in public advocacy or the practical problems of running for office or managing a campaign could possibly claim that one can engage in political speech or political activity effectively without the funding required to support such efforts and distribute such communications.

Rather than “level the playing field,” this constitutional amendment would protect incumbents and violate a fundamental right of Americans. As Senator McConnell has said, why are the advocates of this amendment “so afraid of a free and open exchange of ideas?” Thanks to the sound judgment of the Founders, they will (and should) face an uphill battle in attempting to restrict free speech.

Sunday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal had a nice editorial on the proposal that concluded:

[T]he electorate should be repulsed by the proposal because it’s an incumbent-protection scheme. Giving elected officials control over the speech of their adversaries is a dangerous idea. Americans should remain free to ruthlessly criticize their government — and blow a fortune doing so, if they wish.

We are maintaining a special section of our website here that provides links to analyses and articles on the constitutional amendment proposal pending before the Senate.