Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: A very strange message

Sunday, Feb. 6, 2000 | 9:27 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

The recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the power of states to limit election campaign contributions was most interesting. By a 6-3 vote the justices slapped down the arguments that to limit contributions would violate a person's First Amendment right to free speech and association.

The three dissenters, Justices Clarence Thomas, Anthony M. Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, stood by their belief that money is speech in politics and that "political speech" deserves the most protection. Justice John Paul Stevens argued successfully that "Money is property; it is not speech." Actually this is the same argument used successfully 24 years ago when the court upheld a $1,000 cap in federal elections.

I understand the good points of the decision because large numbers of Americans are coming to the conclusion that money buys too many elections. Justice David Souter writes, "Leave the perception of impropriety unanswered, and the cynical assumption that large donors call the tune could jeopardize the willingness of voters to take part in democratic government." Five of Souter's colleagues signed on to this philosophy. It's a shame they also didn't address limitations of spending of personal funds by wealthy candidates and the need for a soft-money ban.

But let's take this latest decision that limiting campaign dollars doesn't interfere with speech and the necessity of getting your political ideas out to large numbers of people. Show me how many poor candidates with great ideas have even had a smell of victory in recent years when their opponents have had the dollars for phone banks, door-to-door campaigners, television time, fancy slick mailers in multi-colors and newspaper ads. These are all methods of delivering a speech. You can have the most attractive ideas in the world, but they don't mean a thing unless they can be delivered to the masses.

Despite this argument, the Supremes have ruled that putting a cap on political campaign contributions doesn't interfere with the First Amendment. Money is just property and not speech according to the majority of justices.

This same court finds no problem in ruling that a statute stopping the burning of our American flag is an attack on the First Amendment. A proposed amendment to the Constitution -- "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States" -- would be, according to the court members, an affront to the First Amendment. This view of the justices tells me that they believe free speech is on awful shaky legs in our country. This we know isn't true because the First Amendment is probably stronger today than it has ever been since the time it was written.

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., a scholar of the U.S. Constitution, has an answer for the doubting justices who support desecration of the flag in support of free speech.

"There are two main questions in the flag-burning dispute: First, is flag-burning conduct 'imbued with speech' and, hence, protected by the First Amendment? The answer to that question is a resounding no.

"To burn an object in order to demonstrate contempt for it is not speech; it's the antithesis. It is not a form of argument -- it is an act of contempt for the very idea of reasoned argument. Flag burning is no more speech than a child's temper tantrum, and to suggest the framers intended to protect such childish displays of pique is demeaning and degrading. Free speech has never been absolute, as our laws against obscenity, libel, slander and copyright infringement attest."

Hyde's argument doesn't faze the justices who are more than willing to limit the ability of political candidates to get their message out effectively to each and every potential voter. I have to believe that the justices are so concerned about how large sums of money pollute the political system they are willing to profess that limiting funds doesn't have a negative effect on delivering the platform and ideas of a candidate. Again the much bigger problems of wealthy candidates and soft money continue to hound the political system.

Limiting campaign funds needed to send messages to voters doesn't affect our freedoms under the First Amendment, but denying some nut the right to burn Old Glory does. That's the latest message coming from our nation's highest court and it's tough for me to either accept or understand the reasoning of those six men and women.