Neoconservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza was sentenced to eight months in a “community confinement center” and a
$30,000 fine for making illegal campaign contributions. In 2012, campaign
finance laws limited individuals to contributions of $2,500 to a single
candidate in a primary and $2,500 in a general election. D’Souza’s crime was
that he reimbursed two other individuals for making contributions to the
campaign of New York U.S. Senate candidate Wendy Long.
The current limits for federal elections are $2,600 for
both primary and general election. The real question in all this is how
Congress can violate the freedom of speech of D’Souza or anyone else with such
a law. Giving campaign contributions to political candidates is a form
of speech. The First Amendment clearly states that Congress “shall make no law
… abridging the freedom of speech.” Limiting campaign contributions, then, is
like limiting the number of words that a person can say on a given topic.
Should the federal government be able to imprison someone who has said too much
on a given issue?
In 1974,
following the Watergate scandal, Congress amended the Federal Election Campaign
Act passed in 1971 to limit the amount that any given person could
contribute to candidates or political parties in a calendar year. In McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission
(2014), the Supreme Court ruled that aggregate limits, which placed a cap on
the total amount that a person could contribute as a whole to multiple
candidates, was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, but it
held that the individual limits were constitutional. The individual limits were
upheld by the Court in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), which held that limits on large campaign contributions
were justified for “the prevention of corruption and the appearance of
corruption spawned by the real or imagined coercive influence of large
financial contributions on candidates' positions and on their actions if
elected to office.” The Court defined ‘corruption’ as “large contributions … given
to secure a political quid pro quo from current and potential office holders.”
The reason
that the Court needed to jump through such hoops to justify a clear and
egregious violation of the First Amendment is that the power of the federal
government has grown far beyond the confines of the Constitution. Over the past
century, the federal government has grown into a nearly almighty entity despite
the fact that the enumerated federal powers in the Constitution are extremely
limited. If Congress and the President performed their duties within the clear
dictates of the Constitution, then they simply would not be worth attempting to
buy. A minarchist night-watchman state—such as Emershaw’s Individualist State
as developed in detail in my new book The
Real Culture War—would not possess the power to do what crony capitalist
special interests seek. However, an Imperial President which rules as a Caesar
through unconstitutional executive agencies and executive orders and a Congress
which rules like an oligarchy through misuse of the Commerce Clause, Necessary
and Proper Clause, and General Welfare Clause are both well worth buying. Two
wrongs do not make a right, and violating one of the sacrosanct Amendments
present in the Bill of Rights in order to counterbalance the unconstitutional
overgrowth of federal power is unacceptable. Fear of corruption is no
justification to violate freedom of speech. However, perhaps this fear could be
an inducement for the federal government to return to its constitutional
limits.
(For a much
more detailed discussion of natural rights including freedom of speech, read my
new book The Real Culture War:
Individualism vs. Collectivism & How Bill O’Reilly Got It All Wrong.
Available now on Amazon
in both print
and Kindle.)