What happens when you police political speech

Published on May 9, 2008
by Michael Schrimpf

The so-called "reformers" are upset.  Where once they objected to one FEC nominee, they now protest two nominees.  They throw out charges of partisanship and political maneuvering as the motive behind changes in the latest slate of nominees.

Of course, we might expect nothing less when a government agency is put in charge of policing political speech.  There is, after all, a very good reason why Republicans and Democrats each get three nominees and they are traditionally all moved en masse.

Nonetheless, proponents of speech regulation, by protesting two of the three Republican nominees, would come painstakingly close - if they achieved their objective - to dictating who may or may not be appointed to the Commission.

But speech regulation groups do not have this power (if they did, they undoubtedly would appoint a "bipartisan" Commission comprised of Republicans modeled after the likes of John McCain, Arlen Specter, and Christopher Shays. This would technically be a bipartisan Commission, but it would not reflect the dominant views in both parties.).

Perhaps most ironic in this latest imbroglio is that groups like Democracy 21 and Campaign Legal Center, who have spent a decade battling Commissioner David Mason, now come to his defense. What this emphasizes is that anything the Commission does - and anything that self-styled 'reformers' would have commissioners do - can be attacked on partisan grounds.

Simply put, charges of partisanship and political maneuvering can cut both ways. Such is the problem with creating a political speech police.