Mitch and the First Amendment
Following Mitch’s Money, Presentation by Doug Price on Oct. 5th, 2020
A couple of months ago I bought Mitch’s autobiography The Long Game. The cost was only $5.65 so perhaps I only contributed less than a buck to his net worth of over $40 million.
One of his proudest achievements was to support and take advantage of the Citizens United legal challenge which essentially determined that giving money to politicians was Freedom of Speech and protected under the First Amendment.
Mitch writes about the First Amendment and how the Founding Fathers of the Constitution “wrote the First Amendment because they believed that even with all of the excesses and offenses that freedom of speech would undoubtedly allow, truth and reason would triumph in the end.” In another part of the book he notes: “To put it simply, enacting limits on what people can spend in an election ultimately limits the very discourse the First Amendment was designed to protect.”
Do you think the Founding Fathers would approve of his analysis? I do not. I think they would be repulsed by his interpretation.
There is no question that Mitch has and continues to take advantage of the Freedom of Speech that allows money to come to him, but in my opinion at the detriment of We The People.
In an earlier segment, we established that in order to be able to meet with Mitch you must be at a donor level of at least $25,000.
Mitch has always been against an increase in the minimum wage because he supports big business, big pharma and any other big whatever that can give him money.
He listens to those who talk to him with money, but what about his constituents? The Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour and the Federal Poverty level computes to $6.13/hour. How many years would it take for someone making the federal minimum wage to be able to save up enough money to talk to Mitch? Almost 800,000 people in Kentucky are classified at the poverty level. That is 18% of Kentucky of the Kentucky population. Mitch has been their Senator for almost 36 years, but has he helped them? Oh, by the way Mitch makes approximately $100/hour.
How can we cure this? We must vote!!
Check out our Facebook page or go the Kentucky Secretary of States website sos.ky.gov. You will find information on how to register to vote and the various ways in which one can vote during this pandemic election.
According to the State Board of Elections as of August 23, 2020 there are 3.3 million registered voters in Kentucky. Also, it has been reported that as of January 2020 there were 3.4 million people registered to vote. The explanation seems to be that over 100,000 people were removed from the voter rolls due to several reasons. Might need more analysis on this one.
According to my calculations there are approximately 200,000 Kentuckians who are old enough to vote who are not registered to vote. This calculation does not consider the number of people who are old enough but ineligible to vote.
The 2020 primary voter turnout was higher than usual at 29% but isn’t that abysmal? Come on people!!
In August there have been over 500,000 absentee ballots that have been requested. I believe this may be an indication of a record turnout in Kentucky.
All of this leads to my final thought: we have an opportunity to effect change this year. We must register to vote. We must Vote. And we must vote to Ditch Mitch on November 3, 2020.
Doug Price is a member/treasurer of the MMRC and a regular participant on the #MoscowMitchMonday live stream, discussing Mitch and Money. Doug is an advocate of governmental change on the State/Federal level and has periodically worked on Democratic campaigns dating back to the 80s. Follow Doug on Twitter @ PriceDoug
