McConnell "free speech" speech

On Friday, Mitch McConnell gave as speech to the American Enterprise Institute.  For the time being I will use the below article from The Washington Post as a description of the speech.

McConnell defends political contributions as free speech

By Kathleen Hunter, Published: June 15

The Senate’s top Republican accused President Obama and congressional Democrats of trying to restrict opponents’ political speech.
In a speech Friday at the American Enterprise Institute, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said the Obama administration has shown “an alarming willingness itself to use the powers of government to silence” political speech of groups with which it disagrees.
“It is critically important for all conservatives — and indeed all Americans — to stand up and unite in defense of the freedom to organize around the causes we believe in, and against any effort that would constrain our ability to do so,” McConnell said in the speech at AEI, a Washington group that says it supports free enterprise.
McConnell, long an opponent of restrictions on political contributions, cited a Democratic proposal to require corporations and unions to disclose their spending on political advertising.
He said it would require “government- ­compelled disclosure of contributions to all grass-roots groups, which is far more dangerous than its proponents are willing to admit.”
“This is nothing less than an effort by the government itself to expose its critics to harassment and intimidation, either by government authorities or through third-party allies,” McConnell said.
Democrats proposed the disclosure measure in response to a 2010 Supreme Court decision overturning a decades-old ban on companies using general funds to run ads supporting or opposing federal candidates.
The ruling led to the rise of political organizations known as super PACs, which can raise unlimited money from any source. A number of super PACs have formed to influence the 2012 presidential and congressional races.
The House passed the measure in 2010, when Democrats controlled the chamber. The legislation did not advance in the Senate, where all the Republicans opposed it.
The bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), held a March hearing on a scaled-back version and has said he may seek another vote on it before the November elections.
McConnell singled out the Internal Revenue Service for criticism.
“Earlier this year, dozens of tea party-affiliated groups across the country learned what it was like to draw the attention of the speech police when they received a lengthy questionnaire from the IRS demanding attendance lists, meeting transcripts and donor information,” he said.
The IRS has denied that it selects groups for scrutiny based on their political views.
IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman said March 21 that the tea party groups had applied for nonprofit status and could have operated as nonprofits without seeking IRS approval first.
“There’s many safeguards built in so this has nothing to do with election cycles and politics,” he told a House Appropriations subcommittee. “This notion that we’re targeting anyone is off.”
— Bloomberg News 

[end of article]

On the matter of campaign finance, there are probably millions of voters who now  agree with Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig that “Practically every important issue in American politics today is tied to this ‘one issue [campaign finance],’" and the overriding agenda (invoking Thoreau) should be to attack “the root, the thing that feeds the other ills, and the thing that we must kill first.”

It can be well hoped that McConnell's speech will help instigate a national and Congressional debate on the issue of campaign finance, including whether and to what extent the right of free speech should include the right to speak anonymously, the extent to which corporations (and other organizations) need to have a constitutionally protected right of free speech, and whether and the extent to which more rigorous truthfulness standards should be applicable to political speech (e.g. to political speech of corporations).

You may find comments I have posted at the following webpages:
AEI online magazine The American
Breitbart (lot of comments if you want to weigh in; I don't know for sure I have one there)
Unedited Politics
Marooned in Marin (pending approval)
National Review

[also trying to engage Professor Lawrence Lessig and Wall Street Journal]

From: Robert Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 5:39 PM
Subject: Fwd: Professor Lessig's Republic, Lost
To: kim@wsj.com, Lawrence Lessig <lessig@pobox.com>
Dear Ms. Strassel and Professor Lessig,
I appreciate that Professor Lessig acknowledged my email.
Regarding Senator McConnell's "free speech" speech to the AEI on Friday, I hope that the speech will help instigate a national and Congressional debate on the issue of campaign finance, including whether and to what extent the right of free speech should include the right to speak anonymously, the extent to which corporations (and other organizations) need to have a constitutionally protected right of free speech, and whether and the extent to which more rigorous truthfulness standards should be applied to political speech (e.g. to political speech of corporations).
I hope Professor Lessig is looking for and will find a forum next week in which to make a reply to Senator McConnell. I hope The Wall Street Journal will take up debate.
Sincerely,
Rob Shattuck

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lawrence Lessig <lessig@pobox.com>
Date: Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: Professor Lessig's Republic, Lost
To: Robert Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
thanks for sending this.

From: Robert Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 5:02 PM
Subject: Professor Lessig's Republic, Lost
To: kim@wsj.com
Cc: lessig@pobox.com
Dear Ms. Strassel,
I have been following your recent op/ed pieces such as The Corporate Disclosure Ruse.
In Republic, Lost Professor Lawrence Lessig says about campaign finance that “Practically every important issue in American politics today is tied to this ‘one issue,’" and the overriding agenda (invoking Thoreau) should be to attack “the root, the thing that feeds the other ills, and the thing that we must kill first.”
I don't know whether you will take the time to answer this email, but I would like to ask:
1. Where do you rank campaign finance as an important national issue that Congress, the President and the country should have a national debate about, with a view to the Congress, the President and the country "doing something" to change the current state of affairs related to campaign finance?
2. Do you, or does the Editorial Board, think this is an issue that should be raised by Obama and Romney in their Presidential campaigns?
I am an intensely interested citizen, as you may glean from my blog Voters' Victory in 2012.
I will understand if you cannot take the time to answer this email, but I wanted to ask anyway.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Rob Shattuck
Birmingham, AL