Colorado Senator Morse: Election Speech Requires Lawyers

Here's a short but hugely revealing segment of video by Ari Armstrong from last Thursday's campaign finance hearing.



Here's Ari's summary:

On December 15, 2011, Colorado State Senator John Morse spoke about the state's campaign finance laws at a Secretary of State hearing.

He said, "What we were selling there, if you will, was that people will comply with the law, and there won't be many fines. I think what your experience is showing is that... turns out that complying with all this is complicated, and really does take a lawyer. But that's the price of the transparency, to be able to have these kinds of reporting things."

But Senator, if you have to hire a lawyer or risk hefty fines or lawsuits in order to spend resources speaking out for or against any ballot measure or candidate, that's not free speech.

The proper term for it is censorship.

In other words, the campaign finance laws so vigorously supported by progressives entail that only wealthy people can afford to speak, because only they can afford the lawyers and/or the fines. And they're fine with that.

I don't know any words strong enough to express my disgust with that.