Free speech at the polls! This week, the Supreme Court struck down a Minnesota law barring the wearing of political badges, buttons, or other political insignia in polling places. The Pacific Legal Foundation argued for the plaintiffs in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky. PLF's Debra La Fetra explains the court's reasoning:
In deciding the case, the Court applied the most government-friendly free speech test – whether the state's prohibition was "reasonable." Under this test, the State had to articulate "some sensible basis for distinguishing what [speech] may come in from what must stay out." The Court held that the Minnesota statute failed this test for several reasons.
First, the ban on "political" speech covers a vast amount of self-expression, ranging from the naming of candidates or issues to more general slogans such as "Support Our Troops," "#MeToo," "All Lives Matter," and even a shirt simply displaying the text of the Second Amendment.
Second, the law would ban even the wearing of logos of organizations that took political positions in election cycles. In this way, it bars citizens from simply wearing t-shirts supporting the American Civil Liberties Union, the AARP, the World Wildlife Fund, and Ben and Jerry's. The Court noted the law could apply to a Boy Scout leader in uniform, transforming the uniform into banned "political" apparel because of the politics surrounding the Boy Scouts.
A third problem with the statute is that it gives Minnesota poll workers unbridled discretion to interpret and enforce the meaning of the "political" apparel ban. While the Court assumed that most poll workers would strive to enforce the statute in an evenhanded nature, their discretion—coupled with the lack of objective guidance from the state—creates an opening for biased enforcement that undermines the state's legitimate interest in maintaining a polling place free of distraction and disruption.
[Debra J. La Fetra, "Victory for First Amendment Freedom," Pacific Legal Foundation, June 14]
School safety or racial quotas? Roger Clegg and Hans von Spakovsky write in support of withdrawing the Obama administration's "dear colleague" letter on school discipline:
Threatening lawsuits if the administrators didn't comply with the "guidance," the 2014 letter coerced many school systems into adopting illegal racial quotas in their disciplinary decision-making. [...]
Certainly, there is no lack of reasons to withdraw the letter, which created both legal and policy problems. Procedurally, it violates both the Congressional Review Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Substantively, as the WILL letter explains, the Education Department lacks authority to use the "disparate impact" standard in enforcing Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in programs or activities that receive federal funds. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in Alexander v. Sandoval that Title VI bans only "disparate treatment." In any event, the letter's hyper-aggressive approach violates other Supreme Court and lower federal-court decisions, including a ban on racial quotas in school discipline.
As a policy matter, there is overwhelming evidence that Obama-era policies culminating in this "Dear Colleague" letter pushed schools to avoid disciplining students who needed to be disciplined. It made avoiding politically incorrect numbers more important than maintaining school safety.
[Roger Clegg and Hans A. von Spakovsky, "Withdraw the Obama Administration's Dear Colleague Letter on School Discipline," National Review, June 15]
Sugar growers reap $1 billion per year from American families. With farm bills under consideration in Congress, it's time to reform the sugar program, writes Vincent Smith:
Sugar is produced extensively in the United States for a simple reason. The US sugar program is a Stalinist-style supply control initiative that limits imports through quotas and domestic production through what are called marketing allotments. This strategy substantially increases US prices — on average US sugar prices are about twice as high as world prices — ensuring domestic sugar production is artificially higher, crowding out other productive uses of irrigable farmland. Only the 4,500 growers raising sugar beets and sugar cane benefit from this program, receiving $3 to $4 billion dollars more every year at an average of over $700,000 per grower every year. The net gain to growers has credibly been estimated at over one billion dollars a year, generating an average of more than $200,000 per grower in increased profits. Further, one Florida family that plays a dominant rule in cane production is estimated to benefit to the tune of between $150 million and $200 million a year.
No wonder the US Sugar Alliance, the major lobbying arm for US sugar growers, is extremely well funded and uses its resources to maintain a highly protectionist, trade distorting program that annually milks about $44 a year from every family of four in the US. The program is also a job killer. On a net basis, employment losses in the US food processing sector more than offset any positive employment impacts in the US sugar processing sector. The net impacts of the program are reductions in US manufacturing employment opportunities in the order of 10,000 to 20,000 jobs every year.
[Vincent H. Smith, "The Farm Bill and the Sugar Program: Time for Reform," American Enterprise Institute, June 14]
Federal debt held by the public is expected to reach 96 percent of GDP in 10 years. But if we adopted The Heritage Foundation's new budget plan, the federal budget would be balanced by 2024 and $11.9 trillion would be cut from federal deficits over the next 10 years. From Justin Bogie and Romina Boccia, here are some details on the proposed spending reforms:
Currently, the Congressional Budget Office projects federal spending to grow at a rate of 5.5 percent each year. The Heritage blueprint would reduce that rate to 3.1 percent.
Total federal spending under the plan would fall $12.4 trillion lower than Congressional Budget Office estimates over the next 10 years. By 2024, debt as a share of the economy would begin to shrink, and in 2028 would be nearly 23 percent lower than what the Congressional Budget Office projects. [...]
Spending on the three big entitlements—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—is growing unchecked on autopilot. By 2028, spending on these programs will claim over 73 percent of all federal revenues. These programs are simply unsustainable in their current form.
They also come with a heavy price tag for future generations. Tens of trillions in unfunded obligations threaten younger Americans with massive tax increases down the road and a growing pile of debt. The Medicare trustees estimate that by 2026, Medicare will be insolvent. The Social Security Trust Fund will likewise be depleted by 2034.
This blueprint would make a series of decisive reforms: repeal Obamacare; modernize Medicare by transitioning to a premium-support system and making key reforms to meet demographic, fiscal, and structural challenges; cap federal contributions to Medicaid and give states greater flexibility in designing benefits and administering the program; give states more responsibility in running welfare programs; and make critical reforms to Social Security to ensure seniors are protected from poverty in retirement while accounting for increased life expectancy and reducing the growth in benefits.
[Justin Bogie and Romina Boccia, "These 5 Changes Would Fix the Nation's Budget Woes," The Daily Signal, June 14]
States aren't lacking tax revenue. A group of states is asking the Supreme Court to give states the power to tax sales between their residents and out-of-state retailers. They claim Internet commerce is costing them tax revenue. Jessica Melugin provides some facts:
An often-quoted study updated in 2016, and funded by proponents of expanding sales tax collection, projected a total of $211 billion in lost revenue between 2018 and 2022.
But a 2017 study from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found something very different. The potential new tax revenue lost, it said, is a mere fraction of that, somewhere between $8 billion and $13 billion. That is "2-4 percent of total 2016 state and local government general sales and gross receipts tax revenue."
That's a very small revenue gain for a lot of compliance pain. For a relative handful of change, the states litigating this point are threatening to send folks who sell their wares on eBay or Etsy out of business.
With big box stores collecting sales taxes everywhere they have a physical presence, and Amazon now collecting in every state that has a sales tax, the revenue emergency that was predicted is a red herring. In fact, total state and local tax collections, across income, property, and yes, even sales taxes just hit an all-time high.
[Jessica Melugin, "Online Sales Taxes Won't Solve State's Budget Problems," Competitive Enterprise Institute, June 12]
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