Imagine.
It is September 2000. The election is less than two months away, and campaign finance "reform" has been the law of the land since January.
You never really followed the campaign finance debates. Your issue is term limits. You believe that most of what's wrong with Washington is congressional careerism — the fact that incumbents are nearly impossible to dislodge and are obsessed with getting reelected. That's why you joined Term Limits for Congress, an activist group that works on this issue.
 Newspapers can comment on political candidates in the runup to an election. But Rep. Marty Meehan's campaign finance 'reform' legislation would forbid citizens' groups from doing the same thing in an ad. |
As it happens, your congressman is none other than Martin Meehan, the Massachusetts Democrat who, with Republican Christopher Shays of Connecticut, coauthored the campaign finance bill that passed the US House in September 1999 on a 252-177 vote. And on this morning a year later, you are reading a column in The Boston Globe.
"Meehan is a decent guy who turned into a conniving pol once he tasted power," the columnist writes. "When he first ran for Congress in 1992, he ardently championed term limits and promised to abide by them. 'I favor limiting members of Congress to four terms,' Meehan said then, 'and I commit to serve no longer than that even if term-limit legislation is not enacted.' " Time and again he repeated that vow. In 1995, after his first reelection, he even sent a letter to the clerk of the US House saying that he would rather resign than break his word and run in 2000. But he lied. He's on the ballot again, running for the fifth term he swore he'd never pursue."
Great stuff, you're thinking. You know all about Meehan's deception, of course, and it makes your blood boil. Your very own congressman, a term-limits turncoat!
It turns out that your friends at Term Limits for Congress have read the column, too, and have come up with an idea. They realize that Meehan is going to be reelected, but they at least want him know that his betrayal isn't forgotten. The TLC plan is to air a 60-second commercial on local radio stations quoting some choice passages from the newspaper column. "All of us lose when politicians break their word," the announcer will say at the end. "Marty Meehan, you let us down."
The commercial debuts on a Monday. On Wednesday, the radio stations inform you and your friends that the spot is being pulled. Meehan, it turns out, has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing TLC of violating the Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Act. You protest to the station manager that everything in your ad is true, that it doesn't even call for Meehan's defeat.
"Sorry, fellas," the station manager says. "I agree with you about Meehan, but lawyer trouble is one thing I don't need."
You turn to your own lawyer. Can the government really censor a group of citizens who want to buy some radio time to talk about a candidate's record? It can, he reports. Under Section 201(b) of the Shays-Meehan law, Congress has barred any organization from making a "communication" that refers "to one or more clearly identified candidates in a paid advertisement that is transmitted through radio or television within 60 calendar days preceding the date of an election." In other words, Congress has made it illegal for any interest group, within two months of Election Day, to so much as mention a candidate's name in a commercial!
You're floored. You thought Shays-Meehan was supposed to reform politics, not strangle it. Whatever happened to the First Amendment? "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging freedom of speech." Why is that columnist in The Boston Globe allowed to vent his opinion of Meehan when TLC isn't? Is it only journalists who have freedom of speech in this country?
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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