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Campaign Finance Laws (Part 2)
by Richard Lewis
I have
had firsthand experience with the chilling effect of existing campaign
finance laws.
I
became a page to the Kentucky state legislature at age nine, and I have
actively participated in the political process for 32 years at my own
expense. In 1992, I ran for Kentucky's third congressional seat as a
Republican. My 1992 primary
bid was unsuccessful, and I had no problems with the federal election
commission.
In
1994, I made a second attempt to win Kentucky's third congressional seat
as an independent candidate. As a result of that race, I was accused of
violating federal election laws. While
I have been dismissed from "MUR 4012", MUR 4012 has still not
concluded, so I am still being accused of violating the law seven years
after the election.
Seven
years is a long time. I have
spent considerable personal resources defending myself for having run what
I believe was an honest, above-board political campaign.
While I believe that the campaign finance laws, which provide
superior rights to the established media than to individual people, are
unconstitutional, I can tell you from personal experience that it is
expensive and time consuming to defend against these unconstitutional
laws.
It is
my view, as a person who has challenged the existing powers and tried to
give a voice to the regular people, that the real purpose and effect of
the campaign finance laws is not to make elections more honest or more
accountable to the people, but rather to protect the two major political
parties from competition.
But
competition is what elections are supposed to be all about!
If people are afraid to compete with the “big two” for fear of
being prosecuted as I have been, then there will be very little
competition in our elections. Then,
the average person will rarely find a candidate who will really represent
him, and the big two parties will simply continue to amass more and more
power at the expense of the people.
If you
have supported so-called “campaign finance reform” with the hopes that
it would clean up the system, I am here to tell you that it does just the
opposite. The First
Amendment’s guarantee that the government would not abridge the rights
of free speech and freedom of the press was supposed to protect people
like me and encourage us to come forward, speak out, and run for office to
challenge the established power. But
today’s campaign finance laws make it extremely difficult for any
outsider to mount such a challenge. Today’s
unconstitutional campaign finance laws put all the power in the hands of
the big two parties and the corporate media, not in the hands of the
people.
If you
really want a clean system, then you must allow independent candidates,
who have no large party backing, a chance to compete! Don’t tie our hands and give the establishment the power to
browbeat us with unconstitutional laws.
I am living proof that today’s campaign finance laws have a very
chilling effect on anyone who dares to challenge the existing power
structure. Reducing the
ability of outsiders to challenge those in power does not and cannot
promote “good government.”
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