Sleight of hand on the Michigan ballot could chill free speech.
Look out for a well-hidden free speech intrusion in Michigan’s Proposal 2. The state ballot initiative, which is backed by national progressive advocacy groups, aims to get “dark” money from public contractors out of Michigan politics by limiting their political spending. But the second part of the proposal ends up putting undue and unpredictable restrictions on political speech.
The law would create a new class of political speech called “electioneering communications” to be regulated by state authorities. Electioneering communications are defined as messaging that references a political candidate through any medium — from newspapers to telephone calls to mass mailing — within 100 days before a general election or 30 days before a primary election, or “any other form of general public communication.”
So, what is a “general public communication”? As Michael Van Beek, a scholar at the Mackinac Institute, noted: “The proposal does not say. The phrase does not exist anywhere in state law. Voters will have to decide on the proposal without knowing which messages are included in this definition and will become subject to law.”
Anyone who spends more than $5,000 in electioneering communications, be it independent journalists, nonprofit think tanks, individuals or civil institutions such as schools or churches that typically write stories on political candidates, put out information for voters, or argue for legislative action, must report to the state the “name, address, occupation, employer, and principal place of business of each person that contributed $100.01 or more” within ten days of doing so or face a fine or legal punishment.
It also broadens the definition of expenditure to include any spending on speech that “PROMOTES, SUPPORTS, ATTACKS, OR OPPOSES” a candidate or a ballot initiative; spending more than $500 on this activity would require registering with the state and adhering to its various regulatory requirements.
All of this lends itself to a chilled free speech environment that disincentivizes the free circulation of political ideas from the intellectual sphere to the realm of the individual; voters who are disturbed by this should vote no on Proposal 2.