Free Speech Is So Annoying to Elected Officials
30th November 2013
One day Corsi was handing out pamphlets at a county fair. One of the people who took a flyer was Ed Ryder, a Republican and a member of the local Board of Elections. Corsi didn’t have much nice to say about Ryder. So Ryder did what any petty Napoleon would do: He went after Corsi using Ohio’s campaign-finance laws.
Long story short: Because Corsi spent money, no matter how little (his website cost all of $40), the Ohio Election Commission said Corsi should have incorporated his group and registered with the state as a political action committee — hiring a lawyer to help with the “very complicated” process. As far as Ohio is concerned a political action committee can consist of as few as two people. Besides, Corsi engaged in “express advocacy” about politicians. The horror.
Two courts have ruled in the commission’s favor. The Center for Competitive Politics, which is based in Arlington, has asked the Supreme Court to hear Corsi’s case. Let’s hope the justices agree to do so, because the Corsi case epitomizes a growing problem: the censoring of free speech through back-door regulation.
That was precisely the problem at issue in the scandal over the IRS’ treatment of tea-party groups: Organizations with certain political views were singled out for special scrutiny — their applications sidetracked, their activities probed, their members’ reading habits and religious practices investigated — at the behest of government officials such as Sens. Chuck Schumer and Al Franken. (A few progressive groups got caught up in the sweep. But like dolphins caught in tuna nets, they were not the intended target.)