Even RINO support seems to be drying up. Granted he’s disgusted by the deal rather than the unconscionable restrictions on free speech, which really tells you all you need to know about Mike Castle. It doesn’t look to me like it’s going to get easier for Pelosi to push this bill forward with time, but health care looked doomed more than a few times, until it wasn’t.
Category: Civil Liberties
Last Word on DISCLOSE Before the Weekend
Cam Edwards on his show tonight reads a response from Brad Smith from the Center for Competitive Politics, the group Cam mentioned on Tuesday as being the premier group for fighting this kind of campaign finance nonsense. They are the one that coined the term “Shotgun Sellout.” Well, Jim Geraghty of National Review picked up on this story too, which got Brad’s attention, so Cam reads his response here, which is considerably more conciliatory:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmc1kY9dcHo[/youtube]
I have also lent some monetary support to the Center for Competitive Politics, because I really appreciate Brad’s response and honesty here. My comment to them?
I am disgusted by DISCLOSE. I do support NRA’s position on this bill as an NRA member, concerned about the Second Amendment, but I am hoping you folks will do some good work bringing in the First Amendment support. Campaign Finance reform is an abomination for First Amendment rights. I look to the NRA to defend the Second. I will look toward you to defend the First. Thank You.
I will be honest. I did not know about CCP except through Cam’s show. Now that I know about them, I will support them. Fighting Campaign Finance laws is difficult work. The people pushing incumbent protectionism in the name of clean politics have the rhetoric on their side. It is an uphill battle. I wish CCP all the luck in the world in this fight. It’s a difficult one, but it is of supreme importance.
DISCLOSE Vote Pulled
The bill is obviously not dead, but it’s in seriously jeopardy at this time:
Democratic leadership aides said the vote would be rescheduled until next week, but it is still unclear whether Pelosi and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the author of the bill, will have enough votes to move forward then.
I would say Countertop is now very close to being right. The Blue Dogs and Congressional Black Caucus were no votes, the Blue Dogs because of business interests lining up against DISCLOSE, and the CBC because of the NRA exemption.
I don’t think NRA’s plan was to derail this bill all along by seeking to be exempt. The reaction of other groups isn’t something they could have anticipated. But it’s worth noting that if NRA had sat idly by, this would have passed, because no one was paying attention to it, or understood how bad it was. It was NRA’s threatened opposition to the bill that made Pelosi carve out an exemption, so she could keep her Blue Dogs on board. It’s also worth noting if NRA had just opposed DISCLOSE, we also would have likely been saddled with it, because the CBC would have been on board. As Politico says, “Pelosi and Van Hollen could not afford to lose large numbers of votes from the Blue Dogs and the CBC.” She probably could have lost most of the Blue Dogs and still passed this. But not the Blue Dogs and CBC, with CBC representing 43 members.
Pelosi didn’t pull it out of the kindness of her heart. She pulled it because she does not have the votes to pass it. It’s hard to see how she’s going to get those votes without carving a wider exemption, which will cost her votes among those pushing Campaign Finance. It’s hard to see how Pelosi is going to put this one back together at this point, but I wouldn’t count her out. Health Care seemed dead more than a few times. The question will be will Pelosi want to spend the political capitol shoving this bill down our throats like she did with HCR? We’ll see.
Long Shot to Kill DISCLOSE
Joe Huffman thinks this deal could end up being the long shot that kills the whole campaign finance monstrosity. Countertop thinks that’s exactly what’s going to happen, and notes that this controversy is forcing the media and our opponents to highlight the fact that NRA has a million members and receives little corporate funding. Kind of blows a hole in VPC and Brady’s “gun lobby” claims, doesn’t it? Van Hollen is having to do some work to keep allies in line. The backlash from left groups appears to be starting. Certainly none of these things are good for the bill, but I’m not sure the Democratic leadership won’t shove it down everyone’s throats anyway.
If the attention this deal is getting does kill the bill, I think it would be giving NRA too much credit to say they planned it that way, but nor do I think anyone at headquarters will shed a tear. No one likes this bill. It’s the Democrats who want it.
Nudist Lobby
Yes, even Nudists have a lobby in Washington D.C. now. You’d think under our federal system that would be largely a state issue, but no. I noticed they mention the nudist lobbyists don’t show up nude, but show up in suits. How do they expect to get people to accept public nudity going about things like that? How will it ever be normal and accepted? Clearly they have not taken their lessons from the open carry movement.
Hat tip to Sister Toldjah
Going to Jail for Speaking Out
Institute for Justice has this great and simple video on the issue of reporting lobbying activity as grassroots activists.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6GJQGUUdAw[/youtube]
In Washington, the state IJ is suing for their registration laws, the fines for not registering your activities with the government – even if you never contact an elected official yourself – are on par with those for extortion and identity theft. That’s nuts. In Massachusetts, you can choose to organize with your friends and neighbors for a little political activism without government consent or you can start a brothel – both carry the same punishment.
Making NRA Membership Lists Public
Did I get your attention?
I figured that a title about campaign finance reform wouldn’t grab too many eyeballs. But telling people about the intended result of this “reform” probably would. I’ve been thinking about this post for a while now, but decided that Dave Kopel’s release of his June First Freedom article on the subject made the issue more relevant for the blog.
There is one key to the Schumer-backed DISCLOSE Act that makes it dangerous for gun owners who want to organize in any meaningful manner: disclosure of all donors/members whose money may have funded independent expenditures to the FEC.
According to The New York Times, a “reform†bill might require advocacy groups (such as NRA) “to identify all their financial donors or set up separate accounts to handle political spending and identify the donors to that account.â€
Simply put: If NRA wants to use its general funds from member dues to speak out during election season, then NRA would have to give the federal government a list of every single NRA member.
The FEC donor databases are open to all, and the most user-friendly that makes looking up individuals easy and fast is the database available at OpenSecrets.org. Kopel uses the example that your boss could decide to cross-reference you to find out what you’re up to outside of work hours. At that point, you just have to hope he/she isn’t anti-gun, or you may find yourself in the unemployment line. Even if NRA maintains a separate fund for campaign expenditures, you can’t donate if you value your privacy.
We’re by far not the only issue concerned about these crazy disclosure agreements. The National Right to Life Committee is opposing the bill on the same grounds:
One of those regulations involves NRLC and other pro-life groups having to identify donors publicly anytime it runs communications in certain times that ask people to contact Congress about legislation related to pro-life concerns.
“Our members and supporters have a right to support our public advocacy about important and controversial issues without having their identifying information posted on the Internet, exposing them to harassment or retribution by those who may disagree with their beliefs,” NRLC concluded.
It’s pretty dangerous in some areas of the country to be socially conservative. See the harassment that same-sex marriage opponents faced in California as an exhibit of what pro-lifers – and possibly gun owners – could face.
Even the parts of the bill that aren’t dangerous for gun owners actively try to cut us off at the knees when it comes to political advertising. I’m not opposed to the spirit of an organization head doing a disclaimer as part of a commercial, but as specific as the DISCLOSURE Act is, it limits our options in order to cut our political effectiveness.
NRA advertisements always let you know that they’re paid for by NRA. Sometimes, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre appears as a spokesman in a commercial, while in others, it’s Chris W. Cox, chairman of NRA’s Political Victory Fund and executive director of NRA-ILA. Sometimes, NRA may choose to use someone else entirely. For example, Charlton Heston appeared in many NRA commercials during his long service to the Second Amendment.
The proposal would mean that in 1997, for example, when Heston— one of the most respected men in America—was an NRA officer but not president or CEO, an NRA commercial would have been required to cut the amount of time that Heston had to speak about the issues.
Anything that reduces the time we can put Chris Cox’s face & voice in front of female viewers is a loss for our issue. :)
In all seriousness, we have a diverse set of powerful leaders we can choose from at this point, and most Americans would probably agree that using any of them would meet the spirit of any disclosure laws. If Tom Selleck wants to get on screen as an NRA board member and talk about NRA-endorsed candidates or the issues at stake in a particular election, I’m sure most people would agree that it’s plenty transparent.
Politically, Congress still knows we can raise some hell on this issue. The House sponsor sat down with NRA recently to try and figure out their concerns, and they are specifically worried about last minute lobbying blitzes. It would seem that the pro-life groups and the Chamber of Commerce are planning to score the vote – and I suspect that the final product will determine whether or not NRA scores the vote. (If they do, Democrats may lose the votes they claim to have to pass it in the House.)
The Chamber has particular concerns about how this bill favors unions above other corporations:
For example, companies with government contracts worth $50,000 or more and those with foreign ownership would be banned from funding political ads and engaging in other campaign-related activity. The business group believes unions that receive federal grants, have collective bargaining agreements with the government or have international affiliates should be subject to similar limits.
Eugene Scalia, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and counsel to the Chamber, said the Disclose Act does not balance restrictions on corporations and unions equally, as previous campaign finance reform bills have.
“This bill is a departure from that tradition,†he said.
This is one of the reasons the NRLC argued the bill name should really stand for “Deterring Independent Speech about Congress except by Labor Organizations and Selected Elites.”
Right now, the bill has been postponed in the House. The committee vote was down party lines, and all efforts to make this bill more fair have been turned down based on party affiliation.
The intentional partisanship and one-sided nature of this was demonstrated by the defeat of a series of amendments in the committee mark-up that were proposed by Republicans. This included an amendment by Rep. Dan Lungren (R., Calif.) that would have extended the prohibition on government contractors to any unions that have representational contracts with the government, as well as an amendment by Rep. Gregg Harper (R., Miss.) that would have extended the same ban to any other recipient of government grants, such as the liberal groups that receive so many federal earmarks and other funds. When Lungren tried to extend the political activity ban on corporations with foreign shareholders or corporate directors to unions that receive dues from foreign nationals, that was also rejected.
This bill has got to go down in defeat. NRA is a one-issue organization, but they also look out for our ability to talk about that issue with the public during election season. Because many people who aren’t paid members receiving the magazine pay attention to NRA’s messaging, any effort to silence their efforts will only hurt gun rights on Election Day.
Licensing Journalists
There’s a Michigan lawmaker who’s proposing the idea. This is unconstitutional, of course, as there are a number of cases that put the kibosh on licensing the First Amendment.  But I have to wonder how many of the journalists who might look at such a proposal with righteous indignation will turn around and propose allowing government to license the Second Amendment right?
Clayton Cramer on the Rand Paul CRA’64 Controversy
This pretty much reflects how I feel about the issue, but said much better and with more completeness than I did:
Would free markets have been enough to break this long history of governmental force in support of racism? I would like to think so – but I also know that the libertarian solution requires a population of rational actors prepared to look out for their own economic interests. You let me know when you find a species that fits that model.
In my experience most extreme libertarian solutions require rational actors. Libertarians assume that most people are like themselves, when they generally aren’t. I still believe in small government, but I no longer care to go through mental gymnastics to try to figure out how to implement private market solutions to problems that Government is probably the only real viable solution. Anarchocapitalism is also one thing I’ve never really understood. To me it makes the same mistakes as to human nature that communism does.
Either way, when I was in high school I used to work in a union shop, in a job that was menial but was not union. The place never had an official policy of not hiring blacks, because that would be illegal, but I can tell you that no blacks worked there. I can also tell you that this wasn’t an accident. This is a shop that had serious problems getting and retaining good employees. Part of the issue is that people in hiring positions there felt that we can’t have “those people” coming in and taking our “good union jobs.” Maybe it’s gotten better since the late 80s, early 90s, but one of the reasons I’ve become so anti-union in my adulthood is because of what I witnessed growing up.
Uppity Northeasterners, who’ve never had to work in those kinds of environments, often like to pat themselves on the back that the North never implemented the kind of institutionalized racism that those cousin humping rednecks down south did. That is only superficially true. The North had, and probably still has plenty of institutionalized racism. We’re just better at hiding it.
Does Gutting Racist Public Sentiment Trump Property Rights?
I’m generally in agreement with SayUncle and Tam on this matter of people accusing Rand Paul of racism. But I also recognize that standing on the opposite side of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is a loser of a political stance. It’s not going to win you much among the population, and it helps opponents of the GOP paint it as “that kind of party” (even though Republicans voted for CRA ’64 in greater percentages than Dems). Part of the reason is that we’re not quite past the Jim Crow era enough for people to forgive and forget, but I do think that time is fast coming.
I’m going to forgive previous generations for believing the driving a stake through the heart of Jim Crow, and the public culture it spawned, was worth pissing on property rights for a bit. I believe it was worth it. But Jim Crow is gone. It’s not that racism is, but I think we’re fast approaching a point where disdain for racism will be a strong enough incentive to discourage any racist business practices among proprietors of public accommodations. At some point we could allow property rights to re-assert itself. Let social shame deal with the miscreants and keep the Government out of those kinds of affairs.