State Falling Apart? Repeal the First Amendment!

State Falling Apart? Repeal the First Amendment!

Senate Joint Memorial 8007 [in the Washington state legislature] requests Congress to pass an amendment declaring that corporations are not persons so that their speech can be restricted.The reason, according to the Memorialists, is that corporations cannot vote and therefore should not be protected by the First Amendment. But disenfranchised convicts, resident aliens, and minors cannot vote either. Do the Memorialists believe that, under a correct interpretation of the First Amendment, the government can pass laws making it a crime for an ex-convict to give a speech or write a book? Sorry, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, and William S. Burroughs, you’re all under arrest—again.

I suppose if folks in Utah can call for repeal of the amendments that they don’t like, then the folks on the other end of the spectrum can call for repeal of the amendments they don’t like, too.

Starting with the First Amendment…and then the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, too, if the line of reasoning followed by the Washington legislature is carried to its logical end.

(h/t Congress Shall Make No Law. Check out the whole post there.)

Related articles

• State Falling Apart? Repeal the First Amendment! (makenolaw.org)
• Utah Legislature Watch: Some Conservatives don’t like Con-cons (lawafterthebar.wordpress.com)
• Bishop introduces Repeal Amendment (hollyonthehill.wordpress.com)
• Getting back to (editing) constitutional principles (sausagegrinding.blogspot.com)
• Conservatives push amendment for repeal (seattletimes.nwsource.com)