Free Speech

"One of the worries we have, obviously, in the next campaign is that there are so many of these so-called super PACs, these independent expenditures that are gonna be out there, there is gonna be just a lot of money floating around and I guarantee a bunch of it's gonna be negative. " -- President Barack Obama, in an interview on Super Bowl Sunday. "President Barack Obama -- in an act of hypocrisy or necessity, depending on the beholder -- has reversed course and is now blessing the efforts of a sputtering super PAC ... " -- from a story on Politico the next day. We've seen this movie before.

A defense lawyer asked a Baltimore judge Monday to throw out election fraud charges against veteran political consultant Julius Henson, arguing that Henson was exercising his right to free speech when he composed a misleading Election Day robo-call. Defense lawyer Edward Smith Jr. told the court he did not dispute the facts in the prosecutors' case against his client. "Mr. Henson wrote the text of the call," he said. Smith argued, however, that Henson had a legal right to create the call - which prosecutors contend violated state law by using false information to try to supress the black vote.

It has been two years since the Supreme Court issued its decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and we are only now just beginning to see how its overturning of a century of campaign finance law is distorting the electoral process. Rather than acting truly independently of campaigns, as the majority of justices envisioned, these entities exclusively act on behalf of individual candidates - and are typically run by former aides. Rather than encouraging the universal right of free speech, the ruling has had the effect of providing a megaphone for the rich to drown out all other voices.

Sen. Lisa Gladden and Del. Sandy Rosenberg, both Democrats, claim in a letter ("Free speech v. voter fraud," Dec. 18) responding to my op-ed ("Schurick's behavior wrong, but not criminal," Dec. 11) that the 2005 "Voter's Rights Protection Act" outlaws tactics intended to "influence a voter's decision whether to go to the polls to cast a vote. " Then they allow that under the law, political speech is "actionable only when it is false or made with reckless disregard for the truth.

"Come out to vote on November 6. " "Before you come to vote make sure you pay your parking tickets, motor vehicle tickets, overdue rent, and most important any warrants. " That's the text of a flier distributed in African-American and Hispanic communities the weekend before Election Day in 2002 when Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. ran for governor against Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. November 6 would be too late to vote; it was a Wednesday. Failure to pay the rent or parking or motor vehicle tickets is not a barrier to voting; neither is an outstanding warrant.

The robocalls made on behalf of Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. were less cynical than Dan Rodricks ' column ("Drawing the line in cutthroat business of politics," Dec. 7). To describe protected political speech defenses as "hedging" betrays a sneering disbelief in basic First Amendment freedoms. Constitutional rights are not technicalities. Thomas F. McDonough, Towson

About 15 protesters were asked to leave a speech by Karl Rove at Johns Hopkins University after staging "organized disruption," a university official said. Some protesters were forcibly removed from the auditorium, said spokeswoman Tracey A. Reeves. The protesters were not believed to be Hopkins students, she said. They were affiliated with the Baltimore offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Shortly after 10 p.m. the group, which goes by the name Occupy Baltimore, shared via Twitter a six-minute YouTube video of the incident.

In Oakland, Calif., police swept into a public plaza being used by "Occupy" protesters early this morning and made dozens of arrests to break up two encampments near city hall. The mayor, Jean Quan, said the action was necessary because of ongoing vandalism, unsanitary conditions and problems in maintaining the safety of the protesters and others who passed through. In Atlanta, Mayor Kasim Reed has announced plans to revoke an executive order allowing the demonstration to continue in a downtown park.

Herman Cain, the businessman who has recently vaulted to the top ranks of Republican presidential contenders, has been blasting the Occupy Wall Street protesters as "un-American" people who are just jealous that they aren't rich like the bankers they're criticizing. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week, Mr. Cain said that although he didn't "have the facts to back this up," he believed the protests were an organized plot to "distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration.

The arrest of a man selling paintings at Baltimore's Inner Harbor has renewed debate over the confusing rules governing free speech along the waterfront promenade - an issue that already is the focus of an eight-year-old federal lawsuit. City officials had been nearing a settlement in the lawsuit filed in 2003 by the American Civil Liberties Union, which contended that restrictions governing protests along the harbor are too restrictive. But those involved in the negotiations warn that Sunday's arrest of artist Mark Chase could complicate discussions - especially if he chooses to sue the city.