Now He Tells Us: McCutcheon Attorney Admits Money Is Not Speech

[kpete]

Dan Backer, the lead lawyer behind a landmark case that further opened the campaign finance floodgates, conceded in an interview with HuffPost Live that money is not, in fact, speech.


..........HuffPost asked Backer why, if money is speech, bribery is illegal. Shouldn't bribery be considered an expression of one's First Amendment rights?

Money quickly transformed in Backer's reasoning. "The court did not say, and really neither does any serious commentator, that money is speech. Money is not speech. Money is a necessary tool to engage in political speech and political association," he said.



..................

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/07/mccutcheon-money-speech_n_5105601.html

[WhiteTara]

1. So they were just itching to level the playing field

and we are now flat.

[thucythucy]

2. So then, if money is a necessary tool to engage in free speech,

and free speech is a constitutionally protected right, shouldn't we all be offered free money so we can exercise our rights? In other words--publically financed elections?

[Igel]

4. Protected.

Not provided.

Huge shift in the underpinnings of the Constitution needed to get from one to the other.

Marriage is a right. Does that mean the government has to provide you with a mate?

[blkmusclmachine]

3. ,

,

[GeorgeGist]

5. 'A necessary tool'

I think that describes John G. Roberts, Jr. to a T.