Andy Roth points to a bit of good news today from John Fund, who notes a free speech victory in Washington State:
Campaign finance laws are increasingly becoming a tool to suppress political speech, and the courts are finally waking up to the danger. Last week a unanimous Washington state Supreme Court struck down an outrageous interpretation of a law that had been used to classify the antitax comments of two Seattle talk-radio hosts as "campaign contributions" subject to regulation--that is, suppression--by local prosecutors and officials who disagreed.
Washington's highest court struck down a decision by Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham, who in 2005 ordered KVI radio hosts John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur had to place a monetary value on "campaign contributions" they made when they argued in favor of Initiative 912, a ballot measure to repeal a 9.5-cent-a-gallon increase in the state's gasoline tax. The antitax measure ultimately lost by 6% of the vote, in part because its opponents outspent its supporters by 20 to 1.
This is great news, but is anyone else bothered by the fact that stupid, oppressive laws like campaign finance legislation automatically provide incentives to exploit them?
Unfortunately, the high costs of fighting lawsuits alone oftentimes is enough to convince people that their right to freedom isn't worth fighting for in the first place. And if the concept of having to spend money to obtain something that is assumed to be "free" isn't the height of perversity, I really don't know what is.
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