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Courier-Journal Editor Urges Local Libertarians To Keep Fighting Increased Federal Campaign Finance Regulation

By Greg Holmes

           Speaking to the May 10 monthly meeting of the Jefferson County Libertarian Party, Courier-Journal Editor David Hawpe made a systematic, even eloquent defense of the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of association.  Trying to suppress irresistible thoughts about broken clocks that are right twice a day, to say nothing of the rumored subzero cold front that recently swept over Hell, we listened, fascinated, as a self-described “tax-and-spend liberal” denounced in positively libertarian, Jeffersonian terms the version of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill passed on April 2 by the United States Senate. 

          If this bill does ever become law, Hawpe sees at least two Constitutional flaws, either of which would likely prove the statute’s undoing in the Supreme Court.  First is the bill’s attempt to ban certain kinds of issue advertising within 60 days of an election. This arbitrary restriction is a transparent violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.  Indeed, free speech may be even more valuable in the days immediately preceding an election because the public tends to focus more on political issues when an election is close at hand. 

           Hawpe sees the second major weakness of the bill as a violation of the equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.  This weakness stems from the bill’s attempt to permit incumbent politicians facing wealthy challengers to accept more money from each donor than incumbents facing less wealthy challengers. 

          Mr. Hawpe also believes that the Black and Hispanic Caucuses in the House, major power blocs within the Democrat Party, may actually vote against the bill, causing its defeat, on the ground that Black and Hispanic political activity would be inhibited under McCain-Feingold.  Hawpe cited as an example of such inhibition indictments brought under Kentucky’s campaign finance laws against labor leaders and aids to Governor Paul Patton because of alleged coordination of political activity to get out the Black vote in the West End of Louisville in the 1995 campaign. 

          But as with many on the modern American left, David Hawpe’s reverence for the Constitution appears limited to the First Amendment.  He made a point of saying that he and his editorial board had been “strong supporters of gun control.”  He also said he was pleased that what he called “my  President, William Jefferson Clinton” was able to keep federal spending growing during his time in office and even expressed some praise of George W. Bush for continuing to increase federal spending. 

               Hawpe did say that he personally agreed with the libertarian goal of ending the War on Drugs, but he said that he had not yet been able to persuade a majority of his colleagues on the editorial board to this view.  In fact, Mr. Hawpe sometimes conveyed the impression that he is merely a bystander at the newspaper, someone who simply was present while editorial decisions were being made, but who had no real power to affect those decisions.  Of course the truth is that he is the boss at the newspaper, as he at one point admitted, with wide authority to set editorial and other policies. 

               Although his editorials are often harsh, mean-spirited, and in some cases less than honest, David Hawpe managed to present himself as personable, smooth, and charming, always eager to listen and please.  Hawpe went out of his way to mention the “Forum Fellows” program, an arrangement whereby the Courier-Journal invites a group of non-journalists each year to participate in editorial board meetings, debate and discuss editorial policy, and write occasionally for the newspaper.  Hawpe invited Libertarians to apply for this program, saying, “I think you would enjoy it.”