Seems US Congressmen actually take notice when they realize that the victims of their well-intentioned incremental erosion of liberty turn out to be themselves.
It just makes me giddy these politicians will pass campaign laws they haven't read. They don't notice it--or care--that much when their willful incompetence governs the rest of us, but when the unintended consequences come back to bite them, well, they're positively horrified.
See Wednesday's New York Times story on the McCain-Feingold seminars. It made my week!
Seeing the number of constitutional issues involved (speech, assembly, due process, equal protection et al), one can't help but be further convinced that legislators are willing to knowingly pass unconstitutional laws, add language about "severability", and wait and see if the courts will bother to clean up the mess. In fear that opposition to a popular measure (though campaign finance reform never really was "popular") in defense of the Constitution and rule of law--as they'd taken an oath to do--may not sit well with their constituency, the alleged protectors of liberty shrug, pass the buck, and become the architects of tyranny.
The precedents for this operative contempt for the Constitution have been mounting. The national speed limit, the national drinking age, the Controlled Substances Act, and many others, all claim Federal authority in areas where none is granted by the Constitution.
In the Controlled Substances Act, title 21 sec 801, the difference between inter-state commerce and intra-state commerce is made irrelevent in Federal Satute when the needs of the Government to enforce the spirit of it's pet policies are literally limited by Art. I sec. 8.
In the speed limit and drinking age laws, the 10th amendment is overrun by Federal extortion and strong-arming. The statutes even go so far as to claim that the States still retain their sovereignty since they are free to make a choice about where their Federal dollars are going to be directed; for roads and highways-as they're designed to be, or for public service projects to educate the unwashed masses about the evils of drinking and driving.
When a State or Individual's "free choice" carries consequences, and retaliation, from the Federal government, that Constitutionally protected Sovereignty no longer exists.
Posted by Tuning Spork at February 23, 2003 01:56 PM