 | |
| Cartoon by Drew Sheneman for the Newark Star-Ledger |
From New York magazine:
On June 15, 2012, the American Enterprise Institute hosted a speech portentously titled “Growing Threats to Our First Amendment Rights: An Address by Mitch McConnell.” (“Address” is the term politicians use for speeches they wish to be taken seriously.) The Senate Minority Leader used the hour-long remarks to warn that restrictions on political donations by corporations and wealthy people, or even mere disclosure requirements, were “an alarming willingness itself to use the powers of government to silence” dissent. Since “the form of speech most needful of absolute protection is political speech,” McConnell argued that President Obama’s efforts to require public disclosure of donations by figures like the Koch brothers amounted to the government “using its own powers to harass or intimidate those who participate in the political process.”
Whatever might be said about McConnell, here was an issue where not even his bitterest critics doubted his sincerity. Opposing campaign-finance reform as a dangerous restriction on political speech by businesses was the cause of his life. Obama’s memoir casually describes McConnell as lacking “any strong convictions beyond an almost religious opposition to any version of campaign-finance reform.”
And yet, last Monday, here was McConnell treating the spectacle of business leaders engaging in political debate as a stark threat to be extinguished. The provocation was a series of corporate statements denouncing Republican-sponsored voting restrictions, which McConnell described as “a coordinated campaign by powerful and wealthy people to mislead and bully the American people.” McConnell, invoking a spate of Republican proposals to punish firms that speak out against their vote-suppression laws, warned, “Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country.”
