Although Andy Kroll’s recent article in Mother Jones mentions a number of accomplishments the free speech community has achieved over the years, it suggests that the movement is losing its momentum:
Over the past year, campaign finance reformers—including Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer and Campaign Legal Center president (and Stephen Colbert’s “personal lawyer”) Trevor Potter—have notched several important wins. Don’t call it a full-fledged comeback. But the reformers’ recent victories signal that Bopp & Co.’s once-unstoppable momentum may finally be slowing.The reformers’ biggest recent win came in March, when a federal judge struck down a loophole that had let groups like the US Chamber of Commerce and Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity run ads without disclosing their donors. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and several pro-reform groups had sued the Federal Election Commission, arguing the loophole contradicted disclosure laws passed by Congress. Judge Amy Berman Jackson agreed. A month later, Berman Jackson refused to delay her ruling from going into effect, thus forcing dark-money groups to rework their advertising strategies in order to keep donors secret.
These recent cases aside, CCP and its allies have influenced important changes in the way legislators try to regulate speech. In Illinois, for example, legislators were forced to resign to the fact that they cannot limit independent speech. They are now looking for innovative (if not misguided) ways to unburden political candidates from restrictions designed as a form of incumbency protection.
In the federal legislature, “the free speech crew” (as Mother Jones calls CCP et al) have been effectively stemming absurd disclosure regulations in various incarnations for years, despite changes attempting to make the the bills more politically palatable. As CCP Chairman Brad Smith says in the Mother Jones piece:
“There has been a sort of consolidation of lines. I would not say there’s a shift, at least not yet.”
CCP and proponents of free political speech have not lost their momentum. Quite the contrary; we continue to change the debate by offering a side of the campaign finance argument that reformers would prefer to ignore. If anything, the momentum to protect the First Amendments has increased in speed and intensity since the Citizens United decision of 2010. And we have no plan to slow down.
