How the ACLU got woke, became political, and changed its mission. But in fact, campaign finance laws have not achieved their goals. Thats the point, he stressed. In his retired life, Glasser serves as the president of the board of directors of the Drug Policy Alliance. In early 1972, three elderly individuals with no connection to any candidate or political party published an advertisement in The New York Timesthat condemned the secret bombings of Cambodia by the U.S., called for the impeachment of President Nixon and printed an honor roll of those members of Congress who had opposed the bombings. Because the work of Glasser and his cohorts occurred largely before the internet age, Their ideas, their writings and their lifes work are harder to discover, Perrino says. Rupert Murdoch owns the New York Postand decides to use his newspaper to campaign for the election of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to the U.S. Senate. This approach would also eliminate the need for a government agency like the FEC to regulate citizen speech. It is important to review these early encounters between free speech and campaign finance "reform." Thank you for inviting me to testify at today's hearing. ACLU free-speech icon Ira Glasser profiled in new film. Constructing such a system of public financing will be a complicated task. Maher laughed and said, Hes not talking about that., Glasser then said, more seriously, If youre hiring a lawyer to defend the First Amendment, you want to have a reasonable assumption that he likes the First Amendment. Counterpoint, $16.95 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-64009-410-9Essayist and poet Griffin (The Book of the Courtesans) offers an elegant guide to the art of writing. The 1978 case was horrifying on its face. Glasser later explained, The ACLU has become, not totally but theyve become more of a political, partisan, what they call progressive organization.. Ira Glasser: And this turned out to be my political life in a way that totally fulfilled, I mean totally in an unimaginably terrific way, all of those dreams and ambitions and desires that couldn't be articulated when I was 15 and 16 and 18 and 19, and that no adult could give a vocational shape to because and partly these organizations used to . This does not advance the goal of equality. Ira Glasser, age 82, was the executive director of the national ACLU from 1978 to 2001, following a stint as the head of the New York Civil Liberties Union. But contribution limits make that difficult, if not impossible. He is the subject of the 2020 documentary "Mighty Ira", available now on streaming video. The Internet has given us the ability to collect and disseminate large collections of data almost instantaneously. Beyond the constitutional problems posed by FECA's expenditure limitations, the terms of the limitations made little sense even from the perspective of those who were concerned about the corruption that might flow from large contributions. Ira comes from the old-school generation of civil libertarians: a generation that saw Jim Crow and the stark ravages of racial discrimination. They can create events, announce legislative initiatives and call news conferences. Instead of chafing at the constraints imposed by the business elite (the two-party "choice") and the liberal elite (never Bernie), he falls back to Bush the younger's "with us or against us" horseshit. If you give the government the power to stop the right-wing marching in the street, Glasser says, they will acquire the power to decide who they think is dangerous enough to stop.. Such inequalities were built into the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act, and they are inherent in any legislative scheme that utilizes limits on contributions. Ira Glasser is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Glasser won the argument then, narrowly, overcoming significant opposition within his own organization. Limits designed to forestall corruption also give wealthy candidates an unfair advantage. Mighty Iragoes shows scenes from Charlottesville and the death of Heather Heyer, which serves as the obvious bookend tale to Skokie. "[Former Rep.] John Lewis said that without free speech and the right to dissent, the Civil Rights movement would have been a bird without wings. In 1978, "The purging of the media ecosphere on the right creates even more potential for . It struck down limits on independent expenditures, ruling that any individual or group unconnected to a candidate could advocate the election or defeat of that candidate without limit. I had to force myself to remember how awful you and your influence are, Buckley joked in a congratulatory note, after Glassers retirement dinner. The following year, Ira Glasser would become the organization's executive director, a position he would hold for the next 23 years while leading the charge against government regulation of. For example, the major stated purpose of campaign finance reform was to avoid corruption by limiting big contributions to candidates. That's historically and politically true without exception. By Peter Baker , Susan Glasser , Erica Thompson , Leila Philip. This is bad First Amendment law, it has little to do with curbing corruption, it doesn't level the playing field and it is the opposite of true campaign finance reform. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. The incredibly high cost of television ads, which can consume more than half of a candidate's budget, creates an insatiable demand for money. It amended the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), to reform the rules governing the financing of federal election campaigns. The ACLU represented the three defendants. final four 2022 euroleague tickets. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Missouri woman cant watch her fathers execution, judge rules, ACLU pushes for court order over abysmal conditions in LA County Jail, The ACLUs latest step to becoming just another progressive scold at civil liberties expense, Arkansas cant ban treatment for transgender kids, appeals court rules. Where did it go? But it is the right road for Congress to travel. It also struck down limits on expenditures by candidates, ruling that any limit on spending money to publish ads or brochures would necessarily bar speech. Glasser wanted viewers to know why he believes the ACLUs step back from defending free speech is dangerous for the preservation of basic constitutional freedoms in the United States. Some supporters of expenditure limits believed that the purpose of campaign finance reform was not only to reduce corruption, but to enhance fair elections by giving all candidates equal access to the voters. ), Hosea Williams from marching on Martin Luther King Day, Back To Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now, arresting 100,000 people in a single year, Patrick Lawrence: The Return of Non-Alignment, Sy Hersh: US Bombed Nord Stream to Prolong Ukraine Proxy War, The Nightmare Espionage Act That is Killing Julian Assange and the First Amendment, Chris Hedges: The Trump-Russia Saga and the Death Spiral of American Journalism, China Report Excoriates 'US Hegemony', War Crimes, CIA Coups 400 Foreign Interventions, Matt Taibbi: Twitter FilesGEC, New Knowledge, and State-Sponsored Blacklists. Similarly, incumbents can make news. Glasser is an ardent proponent of freedom of speech, even today despite the proliferation of hate speech on social media. I mean, the most famous case, you defended the Nazis being able to march in Skokie, Illinois in 1977, Maher went on. From his work with the American Civil Rights movement and later on with the American Civil Liberties Union he perceived, quite rightly in my view, that liberation movements cannot effectively operate without freedom of speech. Glassers amiability, sense of humor, and sincere dedication to principle end up impressing even his political opponents, who may not change their minds, but at least become convinced that people who disagree may become friends. Mighty Iraspends a lot of time on stories like Glassers unlikely friendship with William F. Buckley, or his tearful meeting years later with Skokie resident Ben Stern, who lost his family in concentration camps and vehemently opposed Glasser in the seventies. While he did not initiate the. the American Civil Liberties Union. The discussion ended up being an exercise in mutual puzzlement. The ACLU won both cases - National Committee on Impeachment v. U.S.and ACLU v. Jennings- on First Amendment grounds. The film was produced and co-directed by Nico Perrino, Vice-President of Communications for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a modern speech rights advocacy group. You see a Nazi. And while incumbents in the House of Representatives outspent challengers by 1.5 to 1 in 1976, they outspent challengers by 4 to 1 in 1992. After moderator Michael Kinsley provides an introduction, Buckley officially proposes the resolution . TheWest Wingset does not have such an experience, though, so calls for companies like Facebook and PayPal and Google to impose civilized restraints make more sense to them. Next thing you know, Forsyth County, Georgia, might be banningHosea Williams from marching on Martin Luther King Day. But he knew little about the specific battles these men, and their allies, had fought. Gen Z Begins Political Support, Wants More Info, Isn't Locked Up By the Democratic Party: The youngest voters are now Generation Z, born after 1996, and 8 million of them were eligible to vote in the 2022 midterms. (Its full name is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.). Between 1977 and 1998, congressional campaign spending increased by about 380 percent. There is a requirement now for ACLU lawyers that before they take a case defending someones free speech, they have to make sure that the speech doesnt offend or threaten other civil liberties values, he told Bill Maher on Friday. Their right to express themselves on political issues has over the years been relentlessly interfered with by the FEC, which has, as a result of campaign reform, gained unprecedented power to regulate, inhibit and harass free speech and protected political activities. Although the ACLU had protected civil liberties generally through litigation, Glasser expanded the focus of the ACLU's activities through lobbying and public education programs.[4]. Various systems to provide adequate time on television could be established. Meanwhile, three of the top seven TV shows in 1975 were liberal dramas likeAll in the Family,which cast Archie Bunker as the recalcitrant bigot-with-a-heart who had to be gently introduced to positive social changes by comic irritants Sally Struthers and Rob Meathead Reiner. Nick Gillespie The runaway inflation ravaging Americans wallets is going to Jack Hunter is a freelance writer, the co-author of Sen. Rand Pauls 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington and the editor of the libertarian news site Liberty Tree, published by Sen. Pauls campaign. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Skokie seemed to establish the willingness to take an unpopular stand in defense of a principle as another prerequisite for all liberal thinkers of my generation, especially young ones. They also sensitized us to the unintended effects of campaign finance reforms. Thats why we created Mighty Ira to tell the story of one man and a fading generation.. Thats the ACLU? I watchedMighty Irafor two reasons. But the problem is there isnt any other ACLU., And if there isnt somebody whos prepared to defend what you say [Glasser pointed at Maher], and prepared to defend what the Nazis say, Glasser warned, then the government gets to decide who can speak.. 10.14.2020 5:39 PM. A nonlawyer and proud of it, Glasser led the ACLU from 1978 until 2001 and is credited by the organization for having transformed it "from a mom-and-pop-style operation concentrated mainly in a . In a statement relevant to the political tensions of today, Perrino adds, Its a generation that also knew it had to engage their ideological opponents in debate, to speak across lines of difference, in order to win their values something Ira did repeatedly with his sparring partner and friend, William F. Buckley Jr.. To the contrary, many were small groups of people expressing their views - like a tax reform group in New York or the Maine Right to Life organization. In books, movies, music, and TV, the acquisitive rich were recast as the edgy hedonists who got what America was all about and earned all the rewards worth seeking as Madonna put it inMaterial Girl, the boy with the cold hard cash is always Mr. Right while liberals were losers. Those insurance bond requirements had been a classic mechanism by which white Southern towns used to ban civil rights demonstrations, Glasser said. In 2017, he led a protest against a white supremacist rally in Berkeley, and has since taken part in protests of Trump administration policies on refugees (in particular, the separation of families). Skokie was home to thousands of Jews, including many survivors of the Holocaust, to whom the mere idea of Nazis walking past their door evoked not only the terrors of the camps, but the shame and regret of inaction as Hitlers party ascended in Germany. The phrase was values contrary to. ira glasser political partywilliam paterson university application fee waiver. Campaign journalists, then and now, pushed the same theme. But if a challenger secures a large contribution to pay for similar mailings to the same constituents, a violation of the law occurs. They just produced a couple of years ago new guidelines for their lawyers to use when deciding what free speech cases to take, the ex-ACLU man explained. In the early 1960s, Glasser taught mathematics at Queens College (CUNY) and Sarah Lawrence College. It was all Glasser's idea. The truth is that campaign finance laws have no demonstrable effect on the amount of campaign spending. In that show,the ex-hippie parents desperately trying to hang on to the anti-establishment aesthetic of their youth through bleeding-heart platitudes and goofy facial hair were the squares. Thank you for the opportunity to present these views. If she owned a newspaper, she could do so. Is it still that?, They just produced a couple of years ago new guidelines for their lawyers to use when deciding what free speech cases to take, the ex-ACLU man explained. For these reasons, the ACLU opposes limits on contributions and expenditures. Retired since 2001, Glasser tells Nick Gillespie that in an age of cancel culture and wokeness, he's worried not just about the future of free expression but the future of the ACLU, too. You see a flag burning. A public financing system could in principle minimize corruption, equalize access to voters, and promote free speech by establishing a real floor. Moreover, when the law forces supporters to be devious and to spend their money directly instead of giving it to the candidate, electoral accountability is severed. He describes cheering in the stands next to 35- and 40-year-old black men, an experience white children could not have anywhere else in America at the time. More often than not, a challenger's disadvantage can be overcome onlyby outspending the incumbent. It feels like an odd way to open a film about one of the more controversial figures of 20th century America. Responding against the resolution are Ira Glasser, ACLU executive director; Nadine Strossen, ACLU president; Leon Botstein, president of Bard College; and Barry Lynn, executive director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Glasser, 82, is one of the most important civil-liberties advocates of the past 50 years. He loves it. These three cases created the constitutional framework that has constrained all campaign finance legislation during the past two decades. Maher noted how Glasser famously defended the right for a group of neo-Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, in 1977, asking his guest, Im guessing the Nazis did not reflect your values?. Suppose, however, that she has a very wealthy individual supporter who doesn't own a newspaper, but who is willing to give her the money to run a full-page ad on behalf of her candidacy. Glasser is best known for his leadership of the ACLU after the organizations much-pilloried decision to represent neo-Nazis who wanted to march in a suburb of Chicago called Skokie, Illinois. While he defended the right for an organization to change, he warned, But the problem is, there isnt any other ACLU.. For example, even under Buckley, limits on contributions are permitted. This demand will be met, if not openly, through more devious means, including taking advantage of inconsistencies in the election laws. Thanks for contacting us. This was part of a broader campaign to connect Glassers brand of politics with failure and weakness in the public consciousness, and it worked. Ray McGovern: The Last Chance to Avoid World War III? After pausing to make a confused expression, he continued, In other words, before theyre gonna defend your free speech, they want to see what you say.. The spirit of Glasser and Stern's friendship, and their message that difference of opinion does not preclude understanding and.