A “balance between free speech and political speech”?

I swear that I almost spit my coffee clear onto my laptop screen when I first saw this headline combination at the Washington Post:

‘Hillary: The Movie’ to Get Supreme Court Screening

At Issue Is Balance Between Political Speech and Free Speech

What “balance between free speech and political speech”?  Free speech cannot be disconnected from political speech.  In fact, political speech was what the framers of the Constitution meant to protect in the First Amendment.  They understood that a free people had to have the right to criticize its government and to express political views without government rationing, censorship, or vendettas.  The notion that one has to balance “free speech” and “political speech” is an oxymoron of the worst possible kind.

The worst part of this is that the Post actually describes the effects of the BCRA quite well.  Thanks to the legislation more commonly known as McCain-Feingold, government now gets to determine when, where, and whether political speech can take place.  The Supreme Court has an opportunity to change that, though it probably won’t:

“Hillary: The Movie” came and went without much of a splash last year. Reviews were not flattering, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign waned and one devastating critique made sure that the scalding documentary would never become a blockbuster hit.

It came from a panel of judges in Washington that said “H:TM” was not really a movie at all.

The court sided with the Federal Election Commission and said the film was a 90-minute campaign ad “susceptible of no other interpretation than to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous place in a President Hillary Clinton world, and that viewers should vote against her.”

As such, the film produced by conservative activists at Citizens United fell under the tangle of broadcast and advertising restrictions in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that dictate how and when the movie can be shown and advertised.

But the ultimate impact of “Hillary: The Movie” may come at the Supreme Court, where this week justices once again will be challenged to decide how congressional intentions to curb the power of special interest groups can coexist with the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.

Whether or not the movie is artistically good or factually sound is really irrelevant here.  The government wants to regulate the film because it got financing in part through corporate donations.  The First Amendment does not have a clause that says that Congress can make no law abridging the right of free speech except when we don’t like who finances the speaker.  Unless the funding is in itself illegal, the government should have no role in limiting the distribution of this film before an election, or for that matter, any other political speech or advertising.

We need free speech to keep our government in check and to get a full discourse on public policy, not to protect nude dancers.  The BCRA undermines free political speech by making it a government concession depending on the calendar.  Either political speech is free speech, or free speech doesn’t exist.  The Supreme Court should rethink the approach taken by their earlier deliberations and toss the BCRA out altogether.  (via Tommy Christopher at AOL’s Political Machine)

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