To the Editor:
Re “How One Case Gave the Rich a Power Boost” (front page, May 10):
Danny Hakim’s account of the Buckley v. Valeo case from 1976 provides a thorough overview of its history. However, the article’s focus on wealthy donors obscures Buckley’s most enduring and important effect on free political speech.
Consider what the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 would have done. It would have limited House challengers to spending $70,000 on their campaigns, a sum inadequate to reach a congressional district of 700,000 people, even then.
Challengers, not incumbents, benefit most from spending, because incumbents have name recognition and other advantages. Adjusting the cap for inflation, the average victorious challenger in the 2024 general election spent nearly seven times the 1974 cap.
More broadly, the Federal Election Campaign Act would have limited organizations such as the A.C.L.U., Planned Parenthood and the Chamber of Commerce to spending $1,000 “relative to” a candidate. That effectively silenced every advocacy group in America.
The act’s purpose was to limit political discussion.
Maybe the court was wise not to hand government, and self-interested legislators, the power to decide who is speaking too much, and which views citizens should not be permitted to hear.
Bradley A. Smith Galena, Ohio The writer is the chairman of the Institute for Free Speech and a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
To the Editor:
In 1972, the American Civil Liberties Union, a nonpartisan group that has never in its 106-year history supported or opposed a candidate for elective office, was critical of President Richard Nixon for his opposition to school integration and wished to say so in an ad in The New York Times.
But the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act prevented us from doing so, and we, supported by The Times, had to sue. A federal court ruled in October 1972 that the law was unconstitutional, and the ad was published.
That ruling was later confirmed by the Supreme Court. But subsequent campaign finance laws found ways to get around our court victories, and continued to bar such speech by corporations like the A.C.L.U., Planned Parenthood and many others.
By 1975, organizations on both the left and the right had become frustrated by these laws and decided to join together to protect their free speech rights from the overreach of campaign finance laws by challenging the law more broadly. That is how the Buckley case began. (In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case that labor unions and corporations, including groups like the A.C.L.U., have a First Amendment right to spend whatever they wished on political speech.)
The question in all these cases was, and remains: Do we want the government, including the current one, to use campaign finance laws to bar speech criticizing the government? We said no in the Buckley case, and we say no now.
Joel Gora Ira Glasser The writers are the principal A.C.L.U. staff members who were responsible for the 1976 Buckley case.
To the Editor:
The article revisiting the Buckley case did not mention one of the plaintiffs: Stewart R. Mott, an heir to the General Motors fortune.
Mr. Mott’s obituary in The New York Times in 2008 notes that he “heavily bankrolled” Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential campaign and was “the biggest contributor” to George McGovern’s 1972 campaign. He was blocked by campaign finance regulations from doing likewise for John Anderson’s 1980 campaign.
The article about Buckley says the Koch brothers created a “right-wing political money machine.” Stewart Mott pioneered the development of a left-wing counterpart. Mr. Mott, like the Kochs, wanted to exercise his free speech and defend free-speech rights.
Williamson M. Evers Oakland, Calif.
Computer Science and the Humanities
To the Editor:
Re “What A.I. Kant Do,” by Maureen Dowd (column, May 17):
I recently graduated early from the University of Washington with a computer science degree. In two years, I plowed through a demanding curriculum, waking up early to study and spending my summers in lecture halls. Why? I wanted to buy some time to write a novel.
When I tell people my decision, they usually ask, “Why didn’t you major in English?” My answer is simple: Computer science taught me how to think.
Computer science isn’t just coding. It’s theory. In a probability class, I studied how people make decisions. In a logic class, I learned how to devise compelling arguments. Many assignments had no formulaic path to the answer.
My professors called this intuitive thinking. Humanities professors might call it imagination. When writing my book, I often rely on my intuition (imagination) to write scenes and emotions I haven’t experienced personally.
A humanities degree does not grant a special understanding of human nature. Life does. College students can read, converse, volunteer and travel, regardless of major.
With the A.I. revolution looming, computer science graduates shouldn’t fret. They are well positioned to think critically and understand the human experience.
Sophie Sajnani Bellevue, Wash.
The post Court Cases About Money and Speech in Politics appeared first on New York Times.
