The Milwaukee Post

May 23, 2014 • Milwaukee County Post • 9 Aged American liberals still get misty- eyed about how they brought down the vul- gar Wisconsin senator who personified the anti-Communist witch hunt so well that it was named after him. "McCarthyism" was the blanket term for an era that saw enter- tainers put on a blacklist for associating with Communists while the government compelled others to talk about their friends and their beliefs. Joe McCarthy, they claim to this day, represented everything America is not. That's why the great irony of the teens is that the blacklisting and witch-hunting going on now is coming from the very move- ment that decried (and still decries) the orig- inal McCarthyism. Oppose gay marriage or dare to call homosexual acts sinful and you receive the same treatment Old Joe Mac and his Red Hunters dished out. Brandon Eich was forced out as head of the company he co-founded, Mozilla, because in 2008 he supported a California measure that declared only opposite-sex couples could marry. (It was the same position Barack Obama held at the time). Eich's career crash is proof that that not only can your current beliefs ruin your life, your past positions can do you in as well. Joe McCarthy used that tactic, too. A pair of real estate entrepreneurs named the Benham Brothers was all set to star in a show on the HGTV network about how poor people can achieve wealth by buying houses, fixing them up and reselling them. Then somebody discovered the Benhams are Christians and one of them once said homo- sexuality is a sin. HGTV canceled the show. Their bank even tried to dump them until a public furor erupted. The message is clear. Publicly state any views on homosexuality that the powerful elite disapprove and you are finished in America. After what happened to Brandon Eich, what mid-level manager of an American business will dare comment on any issue pertaining to gays that isn't politi- cally correct? Is there a person in the enter- tainment world with the guts to say anything remotely approaching the views of the Benhams? Those who don't accept the "enlightened" view of homosexuality are the ones now forced into the closet. This is fundamentally un-American. But it helps explain McCarthyism of the 1950s. One of the leg- islative mobs from that day was even called, without irony, the "Committee On Un- American Activities." Those with the power to stigmatize unpopular views will do so. The redbaiters of the '50s came from the right. The new ideological bigots are from the left. It isn't just the gay issue. Virtually anyone right of center is barred from giving college graduation addresses. Even a crusader for the rights of girls abused in Muslim coun- tries, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, was booted from her commencement slot at Brandeis University. Remember the ACLU? That bunch of left- ies used to pride itself on standing up for and defending unpopular views. The KKK and the Nazis frequently got their help. No one is standing up for the American citizens who accept Christian teachings or dare to oppose movements deemed by America's new thought police to beyond question. Joe McCarthy lives. He just came back as a liberal. * * * I'm one of those conservatives who actual- ly supports immigration reform. In exchange for bringing real enforcement to the border and deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, I'm willing to give something akin to amnesty to the mil- lions of other illegals who are already here. But that doesn't mean I believe congres- sional Republicans should pass a bill that does just that. Our own Congressman Paul Ryan is part of a group of Republican lead- ers that wants to pass immigration reform this summer to, once and for all, get the issue off the table. But Ryan, Speaker John Boehner and the others are dead wrong. It is folly to pass a bill that includes border enforcement so long as Barack Obama is president of the United States. He'll never enforce the law. Obama's wholesale ignoring of the lan- guage of his own signature law, Obamacare, is proof he will only enforce laws he likes. He and Attorney General Eric Holder have told federal prosecutors to stop enforcing many drug laws. A president so willing to ignore laws will ignore the parts of the immigra- tion law he doesn't like. There is no point in cutting a deal with someone who won't honor his end. In the end, the Republicans will probably realize this and fail to produce the votes needed for immigration reform. It's actually sad. The real obstacle to resolving this issue is a pres- ident who has broken his word so often, from Syria to Benghazi to Ukraine to health care reform, that he cannot be trusted on any- thing. (Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show. His column appears weekly in the Milwaukee Post.) MARK BELLING STANDING UP for MILWAUKEE OPINION The new McCarthyism Condemning homosexuality now makes one an outcast By OWEN ROBINSON In the back-and-forth tussle between the courts and the prosecutors in the John Doe investigation and national scandals last week, it was easy to miss the incredible rul- ing from the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals regarding Wisconsin's campaign finance laws. It was a fantastic ruling that pushed back the overreach of the campaign finance zealots in deference to our First Amendment rights. Overall, the court found that several of Wisconsin's campaign finance laws were too onerous and unconstitutionally prevented citizens from exercising their right to speak freely on political issues. The problem arises from good intentions and flawed premises. Many of the folks who push for more and more campaign finance laws do so in a sin- cere desire to limit corruption of politicians by limiting how much money they can receive from any one person. As an extension of this quest, the same adherents have pushed for more and more laws limiting what private citizens and groups of citizens can spend to express their opinions and when. This extension is where the adherents of more campaign finance laws run into serious trouble with the con- stitution and for a suspect purpose. Thankfully the court saw fit to push back some of these laws into the warm embrace of the First Amendment. Specifically, the court ruled on a number of fronts. First, in a unanimous ruling, the court ruled that Wisconsin's prohibition of political spending by corporations is flatly unconstitutional. This comes on the tail of the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United, which ruled the same way. The Appeals Court admonished Wisconsin for not bring- ing the state law into line with a very clear Supreme Court ruling. Second, the court ruled that Wisconsin's cap on the amount of money that a corpora- tion can spend on fundraising to support an affiliated political committee is unconstitu- tional. Such a cap on an assembly of citizens, which is all a corporation is, is not in line with the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. Third, the court ruled that the Government Accountability Board's oner- ous disclaimer regulation is unconstitution- al in the context of a 30-second or shorter radio advertisement. We have all heard these disclaimers that clutter up the end of a polit- ical advertisement. The Wisconsin Legislature passed a law requiring a short disclaimer, but the GAB, under its own authority, extended the disclaimer an extra 50 words without saying anything different than the disclaimer required by the statute. Essentially, all the GAB's wordy extra dis- claimer does is eat up radio time that can't be used to advocate for an issue. The overly bur- densome rule by the GAB was ruled uncon- stitutional for those reasons. Finally, the court ruled that Wisconsin's definitions of "political purposes" and "political committee" are too vague to be constitutional based on federal court prece- dents. According to the court and earlier fed- eral court rulings, outside of candidates, candidates' campaign committees and politi- cal parties, those definitions only apply to express advocacy – as opposed to issue advo- cacy. The Legislature and GAB had been blend- ing express and issue advocacy far too much to meet the limits of the Constitution. The courts have been open to the government regulating express advocacy. That is when someone expressly advocates for the election of a specific candidate. The courts have been much more circumspect about the govern- ment regulating issue advocacy, which is when someone merely advocates for an issue in which they believe. In short, the courts generally recognize and protect Americans' right to advocate for issues – especially dur- ing an election when such advocacy is most important. The court in this case merely affirmed what Wisconsin had forgot- ten. This last portion of the ruling is especially important given the recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa in the John Doe case. The Court of Appeals has underlined Randa's opinion and put an exclamation point at the end of it. In the court's ruling, it took great pains to harshly admonish the Legislature for not bringing Wisconsin's campaign finance laws into compliance with the Constitution and recent federal rulings. The court is absolute- ly right. The Citizens United ruling was four years ago and Wisconsin's unconstitutional law is still on the books. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has promised to take up campaign finance reform in the next legislative ses- sion. The entire Legislature must heed his call to action. (Owen Robinson's column runs The Milwaukee Post.) Reform the right way Robinson

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