The Latest Liberal Attempt to Obliterate the First Amendment

RNLA Co-Chair John Ryder has a new article in the Daily Caller that points out the truth and consequences of the left’s description of Citizens United.  Citizens United, when you get down to it, is about whether you can make a movie critical of a Presidential candidate.  (Does anyone really think that the left would make as big a deal over Citizen United if it was a movie critical of Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton?) 

More importantly, the article goes into how the left uses their mischaracterization of Citizen United to attack free speech and regulate politics on the local level.

In 2016, Multnomah County, Oregon, passed, and voters approved, a measure which created contribution limits, expenditure limits, registration requirements, and disclosure requirements for spending related to county races.  The expenditure limits provide that individuals and entities may only spend money if the money was collected subject to the contribution limits.. . .

The primary problem with this misguided effort restricting constitutional rights of political speech is that it ignores not only Citizens United but also 40 years of settled campaign finance case law.

The Oregon case is interesting because it is also clearly unconstitutional under Oregon law.  As Ryder notes:

Putting aside federal constitutional law, Oregon Supreme Court decisions prohibit both expenditure and contribution limitations under the Constitution of Oregon because “political contributions constitute expression.”  Because of these decisions, Oregon is one of the few states that does not impose contribution limits on either individuals or entities.

From campus to political speech restrictions, the left's continued efforts to limit the First Amendment are troubling and need to be fought.  Political speech is not something new discovered in Citizens United but rather a bedrock of our founding in the Constitution.