By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:41pm
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) unveiled a new bill this week requiring all groups that spend money independently of campaigns, candidates, or parties to influence a federal election or nomination to disclose their donors. Although we have concerns with the bill, the senators' hearts are certainly in the right place, and they should be applauded for actively soliciting input during the drafting process from interested parties on all sides of the debate.
In “Fixing Citizens United,” Professor Geoffrey Stone—usually a friend to the First Amendment—argues for a constitutional amendment to “fix” the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Professor Stone mentions the proposal rather offhandedly, but the idea is a nuclear option. A constitutional amendment—specifically an amendment limiting the right to political speech—would fundamentally “break” the Constitution and endanger civil rights and civil liberties for generations.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:46am
Earlier this week, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), held a hearing on campaign finance law enforcement. We submitted comments highlighting a few areas of common ground between the ACLU and proponents of campaign finance reform.
I spoke on a panel yesterday sponsored by OpenSecrets.org on the future of campaign finance reform. In the course of the panel, an opinion piece by Fred Wertheimer, who was not at the event, but who is one of the most visible advocates for campaign finance reform, came to mind. The ACLU and Wertheimer’s progressive Democracy 21 agree on many issues of the day. But we’ve been at loggerheads on the big issue of campaign finance reform.
By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:23pm
In 1956, in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Alabama moved to stop the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from conducting any further business in the state and issued a subpoena that would have forced them to disclose their membership. The NAACP refused to turn over their membership, and in 1958 the Supreme Court decided in the group's favor. In the ruling, Justice John Marshall Harlan declared that “privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs.”
