Hassanawannasplainesomethingtoyou

State Senator Maggie Hassan is plotting her next attack on free speech.

Hassan said her next step would depend on whether she is re-elected in the fall, but said she plans to closely follow the political advertising in the upcoming campaign season to determine whether she'll bring forward new legislation in the next session. She said her primary concern is that corporations can advertise through what she characterized as a "shell" group with a pleasant name, without the public ever being aware of who is actually funding the advertising.

Emphasis mine.

I find the bolded text of particular interest because there are plenty of groups with pleasant names out there already that popped up as a result of trying to stop corporate paid speech with McCain-Feingold that do exactly what she claims she fears most.  They take money from all manner of undeclared donors and use it to advance a political agenda without having to identify who funds them.

And Maggie had best take a serious look at unions in any future such endeavor (should she survive November) because unions function like corporations, many of which are international in nature, and who support candidates and advocate for issues that are all conveniently the same ones she favors.

Oh, and Jim Splaine is having retirement confusion again thanks to Hassan. 

Comments

[nhmom]

Splaine is changing his mind so quickly after announcing? It's odd that ONE bill would make someone stay.

[Steve Mac Donald]

At least he picked one we can both agree on. Though I suspect he is being plied by the party. An open seat will be harder to defend and they are trying to preserve their majority in a difficult year.

I can't blame them for looking to encourage Splaine to hold out for at least one more term.

[Jim Splaine]

This isn't just "one issue." It's a foundational one. Two weeks ago I had thought that I had done all I needed to do for a while in the Legislature -- succeeded on some things, failed on other things but I had tried. But free speech is even a notch above, for me, the importance of gay marriage, or getting the study of the death penalty underway. Even a bit more important than the things I did to adopt MLK Day or write the NH First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary Law way back in the 1970s.

In other words, two weeks ago before I learned that members of my own party were trying to bring in a system of registered speech, I was fine with getting out of the way. But having gone through the past two weeks, and finding the wave of support among Democrats in the Senate, which approved House Bill 1459 (the Hassan amendment) 14-10 down party line, but stopping it in the House with a group of 40 Democrats standing with 144 Republicans, I came to realize that perhaps a few Democratic Party leaders are taking us where we shouldn't go.

Being in their face by being in the Legislature for another term might be worthwhile. However, I have been talking with a number of other Democrats during the past few days and I think there will not be another attempt, not a successful one anyway, to set up a speech registry. I think that they "got it" that this isn't a way to go. It was a bad message and it gave our opponents legitimate talking points, so I doubt it will be tried again. I'm not sure, but in the next couple of days I'll find out. If so, I'll be in their face. If not, there are other things I'd like to do.

The bottom-line to the speech registry gimmick is that, as Steve addresses in his post, there always seems to be a creative way around those kind of government regulations. In the cass of HB 1459, which would have required registration of any advocacy/advertising by organizations spending $10,000 or more within 60 days of an election, all you'd have to do is spend $9,999 and you can go under the radar. Or you can spend it in spurts under different names. So all we end up doing with the speech registry is create more red tape, and intimidation, for organizations/small businesses wanting to participate in democracy.

However, you let something like HB 1459 be written into law and you don't know how it expands and what it becomes in five years or so. THAT is the real danger of government controlling political speech.