FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2005
Contact: Reid Cox or Marshall Manson
703.535.5836
The regulations silenced CFIF during Louisiana’s last elections when the organization planned to run issue advertisements on justice issues that were of particular public importance because of a then-upcoming primary election for a seat on the state Supreme Court. The advertisements never aired because Louisiana law — and subjective enforcement of that law — may have triggered massive fines and intrusive reporting requirements.
“Louisiana’s campaign finance law is unconstitutional when it comes to issue advocacy,” said Reid Cox, CFIF’s General Counsel. “The First Amendment is not a loophole that politicians can avoid at election time. Free speech ensures Louisianans — and all Americans — always retain the right to both criticize and congratulate our government, even when our elected representatives don’t want to hear it.
“Groups of citizens shouldn’t have to call their lawyers just because they want to speak in the weeks leading up to an election,” Cox continued. “Political speech is at the core of what the First Amendment protects. If the First Amendment means anything at all, it means our laws should encourage debate about our elected leaders, not ban discussion about the issues and their records.”
Specifically, CFIF’s brief argues that Louisiana’s campaign finance law is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, violating the free speech rights of both speakers and listeners. The fact that “Louisiana has known” about the constitutional problems with the law “for decades,” makes these violations even more egregious, the brief notes.
In rulings spanning 30 years from Buckley v. Valeo to McConnell v. FEC, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled that only the narrowest and clearest restrictions on expenditures for speech survive First Amendment scrutiny. Louisiana’s law fails that test. So long as Louisiana’s law remains in place, CFIF “and other speakers will have to self-censor, hedge, trim, and steer clear, suffering irreparable injury to their own First Amendment rights and inflicting such injury on their audiences,” the brief concludes.
CFIF filed the challenge last fall in order to speak to Louisianans, but a federal district judge refused to strike down Louisiana’s regulations. CFIF appealed that decision to the 5th Circuit.
The Center for Individual Freedom (www.cfif.org) is a non-partisan, non-profit constitutional advocacy group dedicated to protecting and defending individual freedoms and rights in the legal, legislative and educational arenas. CFIF has been a consistent opponent of campaign finance regulations and free speech restrictions.