Browne justified his lawsuit by complaining about FEC regulations. As a free speech issue, Browne had a point. Browne’s political complaints were of less merit. Browne said that if he listed major donors on his FEC report, the donors were potentially subject to harassment by duopoly party supporters. This issue has already been litigated, successfully, by one of the Socialist Parties, which made the essentially same complaint and proved it in Federal Court. As a result of the Socialist Party suit, the Supreme Court has already ruled that if a party’s donors are demonstrably being harassed, that Party is exempt from the donor reporting requirement. All Browne had to do to gain exemption from the reporting requirement was to demonstrate significant harassment.
The author has been active in Libertarian party politics for years, has repeatedly run for Federal office as a Libertarian, and has never had any of his donors harassed. In all my years of activity, I have once heard a report of harassment of donors in a remote part of the country. I have twice heard credible reports of a local police force threatening a Libertarian activist, both times in western Massachusetts. If such harassment exists, it is not common.
Browne claimed that the $1000 limit on donations was a major handicap for our party. Browne proposed that if the limit were removed, we would be far better off. However, if the limit were removed for us, it would equally be removed for every other Party. Libertarians may well feel that the campaign contribution restrictions are a restraint on freedom of speech, but they are a restraint that strikes equally at Republicans, Democrats, and Revolutionary Socialists. There are very few donors who come close to giving maximum contributions to their state parties, and even fewer who approach the hard-money limit to which the national party is subject. Browne gave no evidence that removing the restriction would give the Libertarian Party a competitive advantage. Removing the restrictions would be a forward step for liberty. It would not be a forward step for the Libertarian Party.
Browne indicated that he would also oppose the filing requirement on disbursements. Why? You cannot hide significant spending from your opponents. Your opponents will find your advertising on the air far before the FEC Filings reveal it. The record of this book is totally clear:
Hiding disbursements and debts has only one important effect. Hiding disbursements allows crooked campaigns to hide corruption, waste, and nepotism from their donors. Hiding debts allows crooked campaigns to claim poverty whether there is poverty or not. Hiding spending and cash balance reports allows crooked campaigns to spin tall tales of impending doom to prospective contributors. Hiding disbursements is about protecting campaign scam artists.
Further evidence that a purpose of hiding spending reports is to hide financial issues from long-suffering Party members comes from the February 13, 2001 Minutes of the LNC Executive Committee. Discussing the National Party’s decision to file only two half-year reports with the FEC in 2001, National Director Steve Dasbach said ‘regarding detailed transaction statements, the only purpose that some people seem to have in receiving this information is to dig up some sort of claimed ‘dirt’.” Dasbach is quoted as then saying “that he sees no reason to provide more than what the FEC requires, given the LP Platform’s position that the reporting requirements should not be imposed by government.”
In his statement, Dasbach uses Libertarian opposition to government-mandated disclosure as a reason why the Party should not voluntarily disclose its finances to its members. This argument is rather analogous to a proposal that most Libertarians might find surprising, namely that since the Party Platform is opposed to government welfare programs, we should be opposed to voluntary private charity.
Browne claimed that the litigation had to begin immediately. His claims were specious. It was true that the campaign would end on November 7, 2000. At that point, Browne would no longer be a candidate. However, Browne was litigating against acts that were capable of repetition. Come 2004, there would be another Presidential campaign. Whatever the FEC had done in 2000, it would be able to do the same thing in 2004. Under totally orthodox legal doctrine, because Browne was affected in 2000, and because the deeds that affected Browne could be done again, Browne would continue to have standing to sue in 2001 whether he was a 2004 candidate or not.
On November 6, having milked LibertyWire donors for a claimed $95,000, the Browne campaign announced that “some of our coalition partners” had had to “reevaluate their funding plans”, which was expected to result in “less financial support for our lawsuit”. Once again, the Browne campaign had raised money from donors. Once again, it discovered doubtless to its great surprise that it would be unable to keep its promises as to how the money would be spent. Nonetheless, claimed the campaign, “we are going ahead with plans to file in later November…”
No such filing occurred in 2000 or 2001.
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