Top 18 Quotes by Bradley A. Smith

Ultimately, the court is heading to a doctrine of 'separation of campaign and state.' This doctrine, like separation of church and state or separation of military and civilian authority, is not explicit in the Constitution but flows naturally from its structure and commitment to freedom and democracy.

The DISCLOSE Act is a testament to the wisdom of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United. The First Amendment sought to place political speech beyond the government's control, and we can be glad that it did.

The reality is that asking the public to fund political campaigns accomplishes nothing. Candidates continue to seek interest-group support through other channels, both financial and in-kind, and corruption problems abound.

Every major federal campaign-finance-reform effort since 1943 has attempted to treat corporations and unions equally. If a limit applied to corporations, it applied to unions; if unions could form PACs, corporations could too; and so on. DISCLOSE is the first major campaign-finance bill that has not taken this approach.

If candidates spend money on ads and other political speech and their opponents are rewarded with government handouts to attack them, that chills speech and is unconstitutional. Non-participating candidates certainly don't volunteer to allow their opponents to receive taxpayer subsidies to bash them.