Opinion: Worldviews in collision

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The Supreme Court’s campaign-spending decision, the subject of an editorial today, inspired passions among the commentariat that might bemuse ordinary citizens. The explanation, other than the fact that this is the quintessential Inside-the-Beltway story, is that the decision exposes a fault line between opposing views of both the 1st Amendment and the purpose of campaign-finance regulation.

Is the objective of the free-speech clause of the 1st Amendment to keep the government from interfering with the speech of rich and poor alike, or is it managing public discourse so that some voices aren’t amplified too much compared to other voices? This won’t be on the test, but this is known in academic circles as the conflict between libertarian and communitarian interpretations of the 1st Amendment.

The related debate about campaign reform is whether restrictions on campaign contributions and expenditures are designed to avoid corruption or the appearance of corruption, or to ‘level the playing field.’ Those who advocate the LPF approach liken campaign speech to the ballot: Everyone gets only one vote on election day, so it’s OK to apportion free speech for the good of democracy. Those who scoff at LPF point out that leveling the playing field is something we don’t do in other areas: We don’t pass laws to counter the advantage that articulate (or demagogic) politicians enjoy. We don’t require the L.A. Times to print as many copies of every letter it receives as it does its own editorials.

This is an important -- and, to me, fascinating -- debate. More Americans should use their free-speech rights (however many they are) to delve into it.

--Michael McGough