Continuing his campaign against corporate giving to candidates, Gov. Bill Ritter spoke to a group of nearly 200 journalism and media educators Wednesday in Denver about what role the First Amendment played in his desire for state legislators to pass a campaign-finance law earlier this year.
The panel, titled “First Amendment in Crisis?,” was part of the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication being held in Denver this week. While other panel members discussed the role of the First Amendment in the changing landscape of new media and journalism, Ritter used the opportunity to bash a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing corporations, labor unions and special interests to spend unlimited funds to help their favored candidates get elected.
After the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, the Colorado legislature passed a bill (SB 203) requiring corporations or labor unions to report any donations or independent expenditures of $1,000 or more for a candidate. The bill, signed by Ritter, also requires a disclosure on ads from those groups explaining who paid for them.
Ritter related the court’s decision to an assault not only on the First Amendment, but also on the public trust of elected officials.
“In the name of the First Amendment, we’ve actually taken this the wrong way,” he said. “With the court interpreting this as a First Amendment right, it has extended the ability of the special interest to influence elections, and I really believe that will have a more significant impact on this public-trust issue.”
