{"id":394267,"date":"2010-03-05T17:49:34","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T22:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/new-poll-new-result-americans-support-first-amendment-after-all-40448\/"},"modified":"2010-03-05T17:49:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T22:49:34","slug":"new-poll-new-result-americans-support-the-first-amendment-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/394267","title":{"rendered":"New Poll, New Result: Americans Support the First Amendment After All"},"content":{"rendered":"
On 03.05.10 12:00 PM posted by Andrew Odell<\/p>\n

\n<ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/founders.jpg">\"\"<\/p>What a difference a question makes. A couple of weeks ago, <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/18\/wapo-poll-misrepresents-citizen-united-decision\/">we exposed the biased and misleading questions behind a widely-cited <ahref="http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/02\/17\/AR2010021701151.html">Washington Post poll, which supposedly found broad, bipartisan support for legislative limits on speech following the Supreme Court\u0092s recent decision in the Citizens United case. The Center for Competitive Politics, however, has now released a <ahref="http:\/\/www.campaignfreedom.org\/newsroom\/detail\/poll-on-citizens-united-shows-support-for-free-political-speech">poll with dramatically different findings.<\/p>\n

Based on much more accurate and objective questions, the Center\u0092s findings reiterate our call for caution on the part of lawmakers, who appear ready to rush through legislative measures that would curtail the First Amendment rights of free speech and free association.<\/p>\n

<spanid="more-28199"><\/span><\/p>\n

The greatest virtue of the Center\u0092s <ahref="http:\/\/www.campaignfreedom.org\/docLib\/20100304_CCPpoll03042010.pdf">poll is its correct representation of the Supreme Court\u0092s decision in Citizens United. The survey began by explaining to those polled that:<\/p>\n

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that incorporated entities\u0097businesses, unions, and nonprofit advocacy groups\u0097have a First Amendment right to spend money from their general treasuries to fund independent advertisements urging people to vote for or against candidates for public office.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This accurately represents the decision, which merely removed the ban on corporate independent political expenditures.<\/p>\n

Tellingly, when presented with an accurate description of the decision, respondents to the Center\u0092s poll indicated the complete opposite of respondents to the Washington Post poll. For instance, 51.2% of respondents disagreed with the government\u0092s position that it could ban Citizens United from airing ads promoting <ahref="http:\/\/www.hillarythemovie.com\/">Hillary: The Movie<\/i>, or that the government could prevent Citizens United from making the movie available on a pay-per-view basis.<\/p>\n

Moreover, 63% opposed the idea that \u0093the government should have the power to limit how much some people speak about politics in order to enhance the voices of others.\u0094 And four hypothetical questions about \u0093independent political expenditures by a teachers union, a trade association, an environmental nonprofit, and restaurants\u0094 found that a “plurality \u0085 supported the First Amendment right\u0094 of these organizations to make independent political expenditures.<\/p>\n

Such results call into question the Washington Post\u0092s <ahref="http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/02\/17\/AR2010021701151.html">contention that \u0093Americans of both parties overwhelmingly oppose\u0094 the Citizens United decision, and that a \u0093strong reservoir of bipartisan support\u0094 exists for legislative curtailment of the decision. Indeed, the Center\u0092s poll found that only 14.2% thought that McCain-Feingold had successfully reduced the influence of special interests on federal elections, with 44.2% rejecting the proposition. The Center\u0092s data shows that Americans believe in their uninhibited rights to political free speech, and would reject any attempt to again restrict these freedoms.<\/p>\n

Andrew Odell currently is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: <ahref="http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/about\/departments\/ylp.cfm">http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/about\/departments\/ylp.cfm<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/03\/05\/…ent-after-all\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 03.05.10 12:00 PM posted by Andrew Odell <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/founders.jpg"><\/p>What a difference a question makes. A couple of weeks ago, <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/18\/wapo-poll-misrepresents-citizen-united-decision\/">we exposed the biased and misleading questions behind a widely-cited <ahref="http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/02\/17\/AR2010021701151.html">Washington Post poll, which supposedly found broad, bipartisan support for legislative limits on speech following the Supreme Court\u0092s recent decision in the Citizens United case. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}