Kamila Harris Calif Attorney General Started a war on free speech ! ‘Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” Benjamin Franklin’s warning is perhaps more apt today than at any point in American history. In the past four years, the Democratic Party and the progressive movement have been dealt devastating losses at the ballot box, in large part because voters rejected their policies as violations of fundamental liberties. Yet rather than debate the merits of their policies, many on the left responded with a coordinated campaign to suppress free speech—primarily by intimidating, demonizing and silencing the people who opposed and defeated them. Examples include the Internal Revenue Services’ targeting of conservative nonprofit groups, Senate Democrats’ recent attempt to write a new constitutional amendment that would gut the First Amendment, and a host of other anti-free-speech efforts at both the state and federal level. Our organizations, Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit advocacy group that mobilizes grass-roots activists to support or oppose specific legislation and hold lawmakers accountable, and Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which educates citizens about the benefits of free-market policies, have been among the left’s primary targets. President Obama has personally leveled attacks on our nonprofits on numerous occasions, as has Majority Leader Harry Reid in speeches from the Senate floor. Their allies, whether in Congress, in the federal bureaucracy or affiliated groups, have gone to great lengths to discredit and destroy us. On Dec. 9 the AFP Foundation filed suit in federal court to stop the latest such attack—California Attorney General Kamala Harris ’s demand that we disclose our donors, including their names, addresses and contribution levels. Ms. Harris has indicated that the penalty for noncompliance will be financial penalties for our individual officers and directors as well as a denial of nonprofit status, essentially ending our work in the state of California. Ms. Harris claims she will not disclose this information to the public. But this is a hollow promise. There is no provision of California law that ensures confidentiality. Indeed, California law appears to be to the contrary, requiring her to disclose information in her possession upon request from the public. The likely outcome is that her allies on the left will use the information to target and ultimately suppress our organization and those who support it. Ms. Harris’s demand derives no support from existing statutes or regulations. Neither state nor federal law requires nonprofits like the AFP Foundation to disclose the information she has requested. The organization has operated in California for more than 13 years, a period in which our donor and member information was never required or otherwise requested by state officials. We have fully complied with the laws and regulations that govern nonprofits. Nothing has changed, except perhaps the politicization of the office which Ms. Harris now holds. Without any law to back up her demand, our conclusion is that the attorney general is attempting to silence our organization and its supporters. The left has mounted a campaign against right-of-center organizations like ours for years. This trend began in the 2010 midterm election cycle when the left—facing a looming defeat at the ballot box—began characterizing nonprofits like ours as “dark” and “shadowy,” simply because our donors are anonymous. The IRS also began surreptitiously targeting many right-leaning groups that wished to use their First Amendment freedoms to speak about political issues. Nevertheless, federal law expressly allows and protects anonymous membership for organizations of any political view, and organizations leaning both right and left operate in the same fashion. The Supreme Court has defended the First Amendment right of groups to maintain the privacy of their donors and members as well as their right to engage in anonymous political speech. These attacks escalated in the 2012 election cycle. Among other things, the IRS began auditing people who donated to groups opposing President Obama’s re-election. Such actions certainly benefited the president and his party, which emerged victorious on Election Day. Perhaps the most alarming attack on free speech was unveiled earlier this year by the U.S. Senate. Fifty-four senators—all Democrats or independents who caucus with the Democrats—supported an unprecedented constitutional amendment to the Bill of Rights that would give Congress unlimited power to regulate, limit and suppress speech that affects politics. This potentially includes all speech. This measure—which ultimately failed to clear a necessary procedural vote in the Senate—is so sweeping that even the American Civil Liberties Union denounced it as essentially repealing the First Amendment. Absent such an absurd new power, the left must instead rely on partisan politicians like California’s Ms. Harris to harass organizations like ours. We are hopeful that the federal courts, starting with our suit in California, will rebuke such actions and recognize them as the unconstitutional assaults on free speech that they are. American democracy depends on a vigorous debate about the issues facing our country and the best policies to address them. Attempts to silence dissent and stifle disagreement demean our democratic process and weaken us as a nation. Mr. Phillips is the president and Mr. Spady is the California state director of Americans for Prosperity.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 21:54:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015