Brad Smith Leaves the FEC

Mr. Smith Leaves Washington

The first amendment took a big hit on Wednesday when Bradley Smith resigned as member of the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Smith was arguably the biggest hawk for protecting political speech in the history of the commission, which regulates political and campaign activities. He made all sorts of enemies, especially among liberal activists who believe that the right to free speech doesn't include the right to spend money promoting your views.

It speaks volumes that arguably the happiest person in America to see him go is Senator John McCain. Mr. McCain is on a mission to regulate away virtually all private political spending. Ever since he was caught in an embarrassing financial relationship with a disgraced savings & loan owner, he's adopted the view that political giving is inherently corrupt and corrupting.

This is not a good time for Mr. Smith to be leaving. Several monumentally important First Amendment issues will be decided in the new few years, including regulation of Internet political activities. Mr. McCain also wants to ban the independent spending of "527" groups, which was a direct outgrowth of his previous effort to ban large contributions to the political parties. Mr. Smith told me recently: "The right to political free speech in America has pretty much reached the end of its tethers." Even the usual defenders of civil liberties, he added, had abandoned their principles because "their hostility to money overrides their concern about the First Amendment."

President Bush will now have two crucial new appointments to make on the six-member commission, and there's widespread fear among conservative leaders that the President will defer to the wishes of Mr. McCain. Some Republicans believe since their party can raise more "hard-dollar" donations than Democrats can, outlawing soft-dollar 527 groups and gagging deep-pocketed liberals like George Soros would play to the GOP's advantage. Maybe so. But putting McCainiacs on the FEC would be tantamount to strapping the Bill of Rights to a block of concrete and tossing it into the ocean. Brad Smith wasn't popular on the FEC because he unfailingly put principle ahead of politics. Mr. Bush would be doing the Constitution a big favor if he named two more nominees just like him to the commission.

-- Stephen Moore

From Opinionjournal.com's Political Diary. Go there and subscribe.

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Cross-posted at The Art of the Blog