RE: Campaign Reform and the First Amendment

[Joan Johnson <joan@altair.com>]

Jay,

Newspaper editorials, I have found, present the political bias of the newspaper. In the last election, the Detroit Free Press, stated its biases so the readers knew where it stood. The competition paper, the Detroit News, also printed its views, which strangely enough, opposed most of those in the Free Press. The value I found was helpful in delineating opposing view points of the issues.

However, I take your point to mean that some views, especially if seen as out of the norm, do not make either letters to the editor, op-ed or any other venue and thus "free speech" while not  outlawed is certainly compromised. True enough.

Newspapers, while attempting to reflect the views of its readership in "letters to the editor" often do not for lack of space, relevance to its community, and many other reasons. But to say that monetary contributions to candidates circumvents this problem seems to stretch the point a bit. 

I did notice some Libertarian view points in the letters, but not much press coverage otherwise.  I am not sure why not, as there were several candidates from this party running in Michigan. The best source of information was a publication the League of Women Voters produced where the candidates framed their response to the issues. Not wide readership, I'll admit.

So I guess I'd like to know more about how you see campaign contributions by third-party-candidate supporters assisting their efforts at free speech.

Joan