By LISA BRENNERThank you, Carol, for printing the letter from the SOS on the ethics complaint that I had filed against the LA Future PAC.
As explanation, I filed the ethics complaint against the LA Future PAC for their yard signs as I was familiar with the campaign laws and it is a typical political tactic to go after technicalities such as these. Based on the evidence I supplied to the SOS, there was a clear violation in the LA Future PAC signage. However, and most interesting, is that the NM law is unconstitutional!
The most interesting part (and you should read the whole thing here ) is the Attorney General’s opinion wherein he sites the McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission Supreme Court Case (1995), which states in part:
“Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and dissent. Anonymity is a shield from tyranny of the majority…It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation–and their ideas from suppression–at the hand of an intolerant society. The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse.”
I am in full agreement with this and have promoted anonymity in political speech, even letters to the editor, for the reasons cited above. Even The Federalist Papers were anonymous. Politics isn’t pretty and it’s important that citizens feel they can express their 1st Amendment rights without fear of retaliation.
So the SOS cannot enforce its 4th degree felony charge on the LA Futures PAC yet the complaint had its desired disruptive effect on them, the NM law stays on its website even though it’s unconstitutional and I will use this information for my political clients. Bravo.
