Call it the “Charles Schumer Anti-First-Amendment Act of 2014.” It’s the bill our senior senator promises to bring to the floor by the year’s end. Schumer wants to put a dagger through the heart of the Bill of Rights.
He embraced this brainstorm at a Senate Rules Committee hearing last week. He said he’d work to pass a constitutional amendment to allow Congress and the states to restrict the people’s freedom to finance elections.
What’s so fascinating about this is that it puts a senator from New York in the league of the cranks. It reminds me of the billboards “Impeach Earl Warren,” put up by those who couldn’t abide the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The high court decisions Schumer doesn’t like are the recent ones known as McCutcheon and Citizens United.
In McCutcheon, the justices threw out a law that capped the total amount of money a person could donate to various campaigns. In Citizens United, the court let a not-for-profit group distribute a movie criticizing Hillary Clinton, even though she was running for president. In effect, the ruling let labor unions, not-for-profit groups and corporations participate in the public debate at election time.
The two rulings have produced among Democrats a petulance not seen in their party in years. One would have to go back to the 1960s, when another Democrat, Alabama Gov. George Wallace, vowed to stand in the schoolhouse door to block the Supreme Court’s integration decisions.
The comparison is not that Schumer is a racist (he’s not). It’s that the resistance to the court is similar. Particularly since Citizens United, which was handed down in 2010, didn’t hamper the Democrats’ ability to re-elect President Obama by a wide margin.
Yet Democrats still want to gut the First Amendment. It’s the one that guarantees freedom of religion, speech and the press, as well as the right to petition the government and peaceably assemble. Citizens United strengthened every one of those freedoms.
The measure Schumer embraced last week was hatched by another unhappy Democrat, Sen. Thomas Udall of New Mexico. It would let Congress block people from deciding how much of their money to contribute to political advocacy during campaign season.
It’s not just the federal government the Schumer amendment would unleash against people. It’s also state governments, a point that was made by Udall. The amendment being planned would allow the regulation of not just partisan spending but even independent spending.
Schumer is trying to palm off the idea that his scheme wouldn’t limit freedom of the press. No, it instead would unleash Congress and state governments to go directly after voters and other citizens. It’s hard to recall a more cynical measure having been laid before Congress.
The real logic behind the bill was illuminated by a retired Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens, who testified for the measure. “All elected officials would lead happier lives and be better able to perform their public responsibilities if they did not have to spend so much time raising money,” he told the Senate.
Well, you betcha, as Sarah Palin might say. Of course the politicians would “lead happier lives” if they could restrict people from raising money to campaign against them. One could call it the “Charles Schumer Happy Politicians Act.”
Luckily, the First Amendment isn’t the only article of the Constitution that protects our freedom. There is also Article Five, which provides that any amendment must be approved by two-thirds of each house of Congress — and then be ratified by three quarters of the states — before taking effect.
What in the world makes Schumer think that he could get his “First Amendment Abatement Act” (another name one could give the measure) through either house of Congress? I doubt he could get it even through the Democratic-controlled Senate.
It would surprise me if he could get it ratified by even one of the 50 states. Maybe, but I’d be surprised. Thirty-eight states, not a chance.
Which is why the Anti-First-Amendment Act makes Schumer look like a crank. Which is, in and of itself, something to think about.
What Schumer wants more than anything else in life is to be majority leader in the Senate. How is he going to achieve his goal by making his signature campaign a constitutional amendment to gut the Bill of Rights and restrict the people’s freedom?