The state House yesterday approved by a 60-52 vote, a bill (HB 120) that would allow local governments to take your property taxes and give it to local officials for their own personal campaigns.  Today, the House must vote again on the bill (third reading) before it gets sent to the Senate.

Political Welfare: If taxes weren’t high enough and the economy bad enough, politicians want to seize your hard-earned dollars and use that money to fund their own campaigns.  As people struggle to keep their homes, many wealthy politicians would take your money (including money from the poor) and use it for themselves.  The far-left like to play class warfare, but it is their policies, such as this repugnant policy, that directly hurts the poor at the benefit of those that are better-off.  

Unconstitutional: Despite being unconstitutional due to its authorization of the use of what are called “matching funds,” the legislature, ignoring its oath to the Constitution, decided to vote for this law anyway.  Almost any lawyer or person with a brain at least the size of a pea (that isn’t a political hack) would tell you the bill is unconstitutional (at least in application).

Coerced Speech: The bill would force taxpayers to subsidize candidates and speech they oppose. 

Involuntary and Chills Speech: Candidates that don’t take political welfare (I’ll call them “ethical candidates”) would be severely punished through provisions such as the matching funds provisions.  Example: An ethical candidate that spends $5,000 beyond a certain threshold of money (as determined by the government) would trigger $5,000 to go to the political welfare candidate.  In other words, the ethical candidate is forced to choose between exercising free speech but at the same time helping the opponent, or just not speaking at all so the opponent doesn’t get additional money. 

There’s nothing voluntary about these programs and its burden on speech is exactly why it would be unconstitutional.

Political welfare proponents argue that political welfare systems improve faith in government.  Does it improve your faith in government when:

– The legislature seizes your hard-earned dollars during tough economic times for their own personal campaigns
– The legislature takes from the poor to give to wealthy politicians
– The legislature ignores the Constitution
– The legislature coerces and chills speech

That’s the question.  Today, the House has a chance to correct the mistake of passing the bill yesterday.  I hope they take advantage of this opportunity.