Amendment 54 backers hypocrisy over "free speech"

A thought that has been kicking around in my brain for a couple of days...

This fall voters in Colorado will have an opportunity to cast ballots for or against Amendment 54. The amendment would have the effect of silencing the political voices of tens of thousands of ordinary Coloradans by denying them their constiutional right to make political contributions to the candidates of their choice. It strikes me as incredibly hypocritical that Amendment 54 is being pushed by the far-right and the very people who have been so adamnatly outspoken against similar Federal legislation (McCain-Feingold) and past state amendments (Amendment 27). They argue ad-nasuem that they should have the right to make unlimited contributions to the candidate of their choice and that such contributions are an absolute right grounded in the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution. 

For example here is right-wing nutter Ross Kaminsky writing on his own blog this past May,

In my view, giving money to a campaign is a free speech right. McCain-Feingold is clearly unconstitutional, and the biggest failure…yes, I said the biggest failure…of George W. Bush’s presidency was his signing that travesty while saying that he realized it is unconstitutional.

As far as the possibility (or certainty) that a rich person might have a bigger impact on an election than a poor person because the CEO can buy more advertising time (indirectly) than a construction worker can, I simply don’t care because I don’t see any problem…as long as campaign contributions are immediately disclosed in a way that the public (and the press) has easy access to.

Got that? It's a free speech issue. 

Now though we see that they don't actually believe such a right is absolute after-all. What they want to be absolute is their right to make donations, everyone else be damned. They work to stack the deck so that their rich friends and corporations can influence elections and public policy while regular citizens (like you and me) have those same rights cut out from underneath us. 

It's a glaring hypocrisy from the right and I hope one of the liberal oped writers in town takes note and takes this issue on.