Posted on 01/14/2004 7:57:15 AM PST by Valin
If You Think Campaign Finance "Reform" Offends the First Amendment, Join This Effort
In my opinion, which I stated in a brief to the Supreme Court in the CFR case, the Court's 5-4 decision was dead wrong to allow Congress to tell citizens organizations they may not broadcast ads that name candidates and attack or support their positions 30 days before primaries, or 60 days before general elections. The most important point of freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the First Amendment is to GUARANTEE THE RIGHT TO CRITICIZE THE GOVERNMENT. Remember that the Framers of our government were subject to being hanged as traitors for what they wrote about King George III.
If you agree that Congress was wrong to pass this law, that the President was wrong to sign it into law, and especially that the Court was wrong to rule it constitutional, I urge you to join me in this effort.
1. I propose to run an ad 29 days before the North Carolina Primary that will deliberately violate this abomination of a law by doing two things: attacking certain federal candidates by name, and doing so with money donated by a citizen's corporation named "Protect the First Amendment Inc." I will seek a union contribution for this as well, to cover all bases of violating the CFR law.
2. The Asheville TV station that gets the ad will be REQUIRED to run the ad and forbidden from CENSORING it, because I will run it as a candidate for Congress, myself. This will be an "in-your-face" attack on all those responsible for the CFR ad ban.
3. I seek 1,000 contributors to create and run this ad, and the preceding "announcement" ads in print media. The print ads remain legal under CFR. North Carolina's 11th District is rural, with low costs for advertising. So $21 each from the donors will cover all costs of this. We seek $21, or multiples, $42, $210, whatever, so even without a message the amount itself makes clear that your donations are dedicated to this purpose.
4. All donors will be listed in the ad (on a very fast scroll). I expect the Federal Election Commission to come after me, only, because I organized this effort, and because I will refer to all donors as "citizens of the United States" and will not give the FEC anyone else's address except mine. So even if the FEC is foolish enough to try to go after people for "illegal" $21 contributions, it will not know where to find you.
5. I ask you to support this effort in these ways: a. Sign up here. b. Donate $21, or a multiple of that. c. Encourage colleagues and friends of like minds to join in the challenge by e-mailing your comments to them, with a link back to this page. If you choose, you may copy the entire text of this page.
John Hancock when signing the Declaration of Independence, wrote his name large so "King George can read it without his spectacles." The Signers of the Declaration pledged their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor" to begin the establishment of the freedoms in our Constitution. The least I can do to help preserve those freedoms is to risk a fine and jail sentence in support of the First Amendment.
Here's the plan, short and sweet. Please join me in this..
(Excerpt) Read more at armorforcongress.com ...
Just wanted to say that you have undertaken a longterm effort for valuable reasons, putting up your daily threads on this critical subject. Your effort electronically is the same as when the D.C. Chapter decided that it was necessary for the Republic that they demonstrate every Saturday against the infestation in the White House, until that infestation had been cleared out.
Or to use a classic example, you are like Cicero who said in the Roman Senate for years, until finally it was done, that "Carthage must be destroyed." Likewise, CFR must be destroyed.
This is all by way of thanking you for your efforts.
Congressman Billybob
That's why the previous statement I wrote, that you used, AVOIDED any direct mention of fund raising. That's the way to go to follow JimRob's guidelines.
You might ping ping the Admin Mod and ask him/her to delete the mentions of money from this post, leaving a blank in their place. People can get that info away from FR by clicking over to my website. That's how it should be handled.
John / Billybob
That's why the previous statement I wrote, that you used, AVOIDED any direct mention of fund raising. That's the way to go to follow JimRob's guidelines.
You might ping ping the Admin Mod and ask him/her to delete the mentions of money from this post, leaving a blank in their place. People can get that info away from FR by clicking over to my website. That's how it should be handled.
John / Billybob
LOL
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