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June 22, 2012

New Legal Brief Needed to Attack The Incumbent Protection Rules

URGENT: New Legal Brief Needed to Attack The Incumbent Protection Rules

by Perry Willis, Co-Founder, Downsize DC Foundation

In this message:

  • A politician named Chris Van Hollen wants to restrict your Freedom of the Press.
  • We want to file a legal brief to stop him. 

WARNING: The deadline for filing the brief is Wednesday. We must tell our attorney yes or no quickly. You can contribute using our secure online form.

Here we go . . .

The Ruling Class calls them campaign finance laws. But they're really incumbent protection rules.

These rules silence dissent and cripple challengers. They're inherently criminal, and nothing criminal should ever be called a law. So let's do this . . .

  • Never call them campaign finance laws.
  • Always call them Incumbent Protection Rules.

Now here's your chance to fight these criminal rules . . .

  • We want to file another legal brief in an Incumbent Protection case.
  • We want to repeat our freedom of the press argument.

Remember . . .

  • Everyone else makes “freedom of speech” arguments in these cases.
  • Only we are saying that these rigged rules violate YOUR freedom of the PRESS.

Our unique argument strikes a death blow to the Court's previous rulings. Here’s how the Supreme Court has “reasoned” away the “freedom of speech” argument . . .

  • Speech is free. It costs no money. Therefore . . .
  • Money isn't speech, so Congress can regulate political contributions.

But please notice and appreciate how our attorneys have completely obliterated this so-called reasoning . . .

A press does cost money!

The Regime Media Cartel (imprecisely known as the mainstream media) gets to influence politics by . . .

  • raising and spending unlimited dollars,
  • from unlimited sources,
  • with no public reporting requirements

So why can't you?

Are “freedom of the press” and “freedom of association” individual rights, which apply to you and your friends? Or are they just for the media cartel?

Shouldn't you and your friends be able to join together to pool your resources to operate a “press” to express political opinions? Even if that “press” is called something like DownsizeDC.org?

We think the answer is obvious and resounding. YES!

But the politicians and the Regime Media both disagree, because they want to silence you!

Please understand what's at stake . . .

The Regime Media and incumbent politicians have a shared interest. They both want to monopolize political expression, because that will allow them to monopolize THOUGHT and POWER.

But we've been slowly beating back this criminal cabal.

We've been restoring your ability to join together with others to fund political expression.

We've been doing this by pushing the Freedom of the Press argument in every incumbent protection case available. And it's working!

Our arguments have influenced Court opinions. And the more we can repeat our arguments, the more influence you will have.

One big example was the Citizens United (CU) case. The Regime Media loves to lie about the CU decision because it threatens their monopoly so directly. But here’s the truth . . .

All the CU ruling did was allow you to use 501c4 organizations, like DownsizeDC.org, as a “press,” to communicate political ideas that you value.

Our lovely politicians created a special category of political expression that they wanted to control. If you and your friends joined together to express yourselves about . . .

  • an incumbent's voting record, or . . .
  • to urge action on a pending vote, and . . .
  • you did this 30 days before a primary, or . . .
  • 60 days before a general election, then . . .

. . . you were suddenly doing something the politicians called Electioneering Communications.

The politicians felt they had a right to control that.

The rules they created to restrain your so-called “electioneering communications” meant that DownsizeDC.org could not easily use any electronic broadcast medium to alert the public in the days preceding a vote!

Citizens United fixed that. And that's all the Citizens United case did, despite all the media lies to the contrary.

The Regime Media hates it when you can compete with them, and so do incumbent politicians.

Unsurprisingly, along comes a “made man” from the Ruling Class to try and diminish your Freedom of the Press rights that Citizens United partially restored.  His name is Chris Van Hollen. He's a Democrat from Maryland. And he wants your name on a list!

If you contribute to DownsizeDC.org, and DownsizeDC.org runs ads that qualify as “electioneering communications,” then Van Hollen wants your name reported to the Federal State. But this reporting is a sly statist trick . . .

Politicians and the Regime Media like to claim that voters need to know who funds ads. But how often do you think voters review such information? I bet the answer is close to zero. Instead . . .

It's the Media Cartel & Incumbents that want to know who the funders are.

Because they want to know who their enemies are.

Think about it. Public reporting of donor names could be voluntary. If voters really value it then they could punish candidates and groups that fail to do it. But that wouldn't satisfy the Media Cartel and the Incumbents, because . . .

They want to chill political expression that doesn't come from them.

It's really that simple.

They want to make people hesitate to associate and to pause, perhaps permanently, before expressing themselves. That's why the reporting requirement is mandatory. And you must obey it, or you will be harmed, with fines and possible imprisonment.

Now here's what politician Van Hollen is contending in Court . . .

If a group like Downsize DC dares to engage in “electioneering communication” even once, then Van Hollen wants us to report all of our donors to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

But . . .

The FEC contends that we only have to report donors who give contributions targeted to “electioneering communications,” or that are deposited in an account designated for that purpose. The Citizens United ruling said that we don’t have to create such an account, if we don’t want to.

Van Hollen hates this. He wants to know the name of everyone who dares to fund political expression of any kind — not just the technically defined “electioneering communications.”

So here's our challenge . . .

  • We want to file a brief in this case, using our unique arguments.
  • But the filing deadline is next Wednesday.
  • So work has to begin now.
  • And that can only happen if we have the funding now.

If we don't get the funding in time then the Court won't hear our unique arguments.

And every contribution helps, but we know from past experience, that we'll need AT LEAST ONE supporter to invest $1,000 or more. Can you be that donor?

You can contribute using our secure online form.

This is a project of the Downsize DC Foundation. That means your investment can be tax-deductible, if you itemize.

Help fund this brief and we'll . . .

  • Send you a copy of it when it's done, if we have your email address.
  • Recognize you, by name, in a future Downsizer-Dispatch, unless you check the box on the donor form requesting anonymity.

Okay, the verdict is now in your hands.

Perry Willis
Co-founder
Downsize DC Foundation

If your comment is off-topic for this post, please email us at feedback@downsizedc.org

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