Friday, June 21, 2019

More ‘Dark Money’ Nonsense in New Jersey


The drumbeat goes on to pass New Jersey’s “dark money” bill into law. Under the interesting title To combat mistrust, the public needs to know who’s giving politicians their cash, State Senator Troy Singleton is the latest to beat the compulsory disclosure drum. Here are some excerpts:

In recent years, independent expenditure campaign committees have become a growing influence over our electoral process – not just here in New Jersey, but nationally as well. They funnel millions and millions of dollars in order to sway elections without ever disclosing the identities of their donors. This has led to a system that is dominated by wealthy special interests who remain anonymous.

These clandestine entities live in the shadows of our political system, with benign sounding names designed to conceal donors’ identities and their true intentions. Their funding is known as “dark money” for a reason – to keep the public in the dark and unenlightened.

The public has a right to know who funds the political ads they see on television, encounter on social media, and hear on the radio. Without knowing what interests are behind the information, they are unable to make informed decisions.[!]

To combat that feeling of mistrust, we need real campaign finance reform. That is why I’ve been working closely with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission since 2016 to craft legislation that would provide greater transparency through heightened disclosure, which I believe is necessary to empower voters to hold all of us elected representatives accountable. In the wake of the United State Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision, we saw how drastically the voices of average citizens were drowned out in today’s political structure, which impedes the democratic process.

The "politics of personal destruction," a phrase once made popular by former President Bill Clinton, has never been, nor will it ever be, my objective or motivation in crafting public policy.

Ever since Citizens United, the strongest victory for freedom of speech in a long time, the statists of both parties have been trying to work around the decision. Compulsory disclosure is one tactic.

All emphasized phrases in the above excerpts are mine. I posted these comments:

The “voices of average citizens” are not “drowned out” by anonymous expenditures; not my voice or anyone else’s. That ridiculous catchphrase is hollow. Each of us is free to consider the issues and candidates before we vote. Such spending amplifies the issues, fosters debate, and helps us decide.

The “public”—including the government—has no “right to know” how private individuals spend their money on political activism. Political expression is an inalienable individual right. The essence of the democratic process is expression and debate geared precisely toward the goal of “swaying” and “influencing our elections and governmental processes”; that is, persuading others to vote a certain way.

The "politics of personal destruction" is precisely what mandatory disclosure would expose activists to. That may not be Singleton’s motive. What about others? That political weapon shouldn’t be unleashed at all. Spending is integral to free speech. Anonymous spending equals anonymous speech. Anonymous speech has been sanctioned by Supreme Court justices John Harlin II, Hugo Black, John Paul Stevens, and Clarence Thomas. As SCOTUS ruled in NAACP vs. Alabama [1958], “compelled disclosure” impairs individuals’ “collective effort to foster beliefs” by exposing them to “manifestations of public hostility,” violating fundamental rights to free association and privacy thereof, free speech, and due process. So-called “dark money” is an expression of these rights and should be protected.

The political class and its media cohorts are trying to gin up paranoia about some underworld of “dark money.” It seeks “transparency” so it can demonize and intimidate private activists, especially dissenters, into silence. Why? Precisely because it doesn’t like being held accountable.

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