Tonight’s hat tip goes to WIBA's Vicki McKenna. Madison’s own talk show host points out a tax revolt in the State of Washington, and a decision by Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham that talk radio personnel are subject to regulation under Campaign Finance Reform Law. Is anyone really surprised a liberal judge faced with a tax revolt is willing find away around the 1st amendment?
The Olympian Article: “A Thurston County judge ruled this morning that backers of the anti-gas tax initiative cannot spend approximately $20,000 in Internet contributions until reporting the street addresses of the donors. … In a potentially more significant part of the ruling, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham said Initiative 912 sponsors must report the airtime of two talk show hosts as in-kind political contributions. … Wickham's ruling only applies to the airtime when the hosts were soliciting money.”In all fairness, the citizens of Washington are deeply split over increasing gas taxes to pay for infrastructure improvements. KVI Radio hosts Kirby Wilbur and John Carlson unabashedly exhorted their listeners to support a ballot referendum entitled Initiative 912 to repeal the gas tax increase. Government advocates for the tax increase, lead by the San Juan County prosecutor and city attorneys for Seattle, filed campaign finance charges against Initiative 912 activists and the radio station personnel in specific. The specific State regulation creating the controversy reads as follows:
“RCW 42.17.020 (c) Contributions other than money or its equivalent are deemed to have a monetary value equivalent to the fair market value of the contribution. Services or property or rights furnished at less than their fair market value for the purpose of assisting any candidate or political committee are deemed a contribution. Such a contribution must be reported as an in-kind contribution at its fair market value and counts towards any applicable contribution limit of the provider.”The key phrase is “money or its equivalent”, because once campaign finance regulates not only money but anything that can be expressed in terms of money, then government has the power to regulate virtually all activity. Money can’t buy love, but products and services are definable by price. Judge Wickham’s ruling in effect means that any activity associated with a political agenda is potentially fair game for regulation. Authorities simply need to define words and actions in measured amounts of the coin of the realm.
For example, if I give a campaign worker an organically grown Washington State apple, and a similar apple sells for $1.00 at Woodman’s Grocery Store, and I have already contributed my maximum individual cash contribution to that candidate, am I now a felon? What if I simply talk to the campaign worker for a minute and it is subsequently established my employer pays me $60.00/hr to speak in court. Is my brief chat with that campaign worker the money equivalent of an apple, and thus also actionable as a felony? How much is a can of worms at Dorn’s Bait Shop?
Two Washington State papers have editorials about the ruling. The Seattle Times gets it right and the Seattle Post Intelligencer gets it wrong.
Seattle Times Editorial: “See what is being done here. The judge is following a simple syllogism: All political contributions may be regulated; Speech is a political contribution; Therefore, speech may be regulated.”In my opinion every citizen has a “vested interest” in public policy, and government employees uncomfortable with citizen control of the government need to be sent looking for private sector work.
Two years ago, when the federal campaign-finance law reached the U.S. Supreme Court, dissenting justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas warned that something like this would happen. We doubted it; it seemed clear to us that the law applied to ads, not editorial content. We thought Thomas was over the top when he said campaign-finance law was leading toward "outright regulation of the press. … Judge Wickham has made a step toward just that. It is a dangerous, unconstitutional ruling. The losers need to appeal it and the appellate courts need to reverse it.
Seattle Post Intelligencer Editorial: Wickham's third decision was more controversial, if no less correct, because it broached the distinction between editorial advocacy and direct campaign involvement. … But it is different when the on-air hosts are directly campaigning on their programs. They're acting as political activists, not journalists. … Carlson and Wilbur crossed the line, not by expressing their support of a public policy issue, but by having a vested interest in it.
