More an Amendment 54, free speech and hypocritical libertarians

Yesterday morning I mentioned that it struck me as exceedingly hypocritical that the same rigid right-wing ideology that has repelled at the very mention of leveling of the political playing field through campaign finance reform are now pushing their very own massive campaign finance amendment. Today I'll try to draw the line a little clearer than I did yesterday. 

Amendment 54 is the brain child of "libertarian" Jon Caldera. Caldera of course heads up the Independence Institute locally in Colorado and it is billed as a "free market think tank." If it doesn't strike you as very odd that a "free market" institute would be pushing a far-reaching constitutional amendment to restrict political speech let me dig a little deeper for you. Lets see what one of the Independence Institute's brightest young stars, Jessica Peck Corry, had to say about campaign finance regulations this past spring in the Denver Post, 

Campaign finance reform, once billed as a way to mitigate the effect of big money in politics, is having its greatest impact in turning well-intentioned grassroots candidates and campaigns into lawbreakers...

She goes on to list a variety of semi-scandals and diffciulties caused by Colorado's "confusing" campaign finance laws. Which is ironic since the Independence Instiute and Jon Caldera's Amendment 54 will in fact lead to increased litigation and camapign finance complaints levied against the very people that Corry claims to care so much about - the grassroots and the little guys who can't afford high-priced election law attorneys.  

Does it make any sense at all for a "free market" think tank who's own members very publicly decry the impact of over-complicated campaign finance laws to be backing just such an amendment this fall? Of course it doesn't. Caldera has long been considered something of a loud-mouthed buffoon by many political insiders, I think we can safely add the label hypocrite to him as well.