Friendly advice to the court

Hugh Hewitt:

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I taught my ConLaw students the campaign finance cases this week, and, as is always the case, the dazed looks on their faces were even more puzzled than usual. I am of course aware that the blame for this could rest completely at my feet, but I think we all know that beginning with Buckley v. Valeo, your predecessors haven’t exactly been kind to the idea of “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” Oh, I explained the decision of course, and the distinction between an incumbent-imposed limit on contribution and one on expenditure, but the wreckage of reason and principle that have been left in the wake of Buckley and its progeny, well, let’s just say my students and all law students (and increasingly the public) know that these decisions have Plessy, Lochner, and Korematsu written all over them The politically ambitious among the students are sighing over the prospect of campaigns conducted under the watchful eyes of the FEC legions, and weary already at the prospect of tens of thousands of fund-raising calls mounted over the course of an even moderately successful political career. Those that are simply civic-minded are asking "When did the protection of entrenched power become a 1776/1789 value?"

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That problem’s getting worse, of course. In the old, pre-1976 days the civic-minded but politically inept could dig deep and send forth talented stand-ins with a series of checks that assured them of viability. Think Edmund Burke. No more. Now the super rich and ambitious have a head start on gaining office and running the country even greater than the traditional advantages bestowed by wealth. Considering the built in advantages that wealth brings, many middle class candidates would rather challenge Tiger Woods to match play and hope he sleeps in than go up against a well-heeled opponent in an election.

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There is much more. It is cases like this that make me a strict constructionist. What is so hard to comprehend about the phrase "Congress shall make no law..."? I cannot think of a more clear way of stating intent. The mental gymnastics it takes to rationalize ignoring the express language in the name of creating "more dishonest" campaigns is in fact dishonest to its core.