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Editorials
Thursday, January 4, 2001Political candidate’s
right of free speechThe issue: A federal judge has ruled that the state Code of Fair Campaign Practices is unconstitutional.
A federal judge here has stood up for the First Amendment right of free speech and press by declaring unconstitutional "on its face" the state Code of Fair Campaign Practices. Ruling in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the firm of Simons & Viola, Judge Helen Gillmor ordered the state Campaign Spending Commission to cancel its censure of Roger Ancheta, an unsuccessful 1998 Republican candidate for the state Senate, for violating the code.
The commission had found that Ancheta produced a campaign brochure containing criticism of his opponent, then-Sen. Randall Iwase, that, in the words of the commission's director, had "gone over the line in distortions and misrepresentations."
Ancheta mailed fliers with a cartoon depicting Iwase in a jacket pocket labeled "special interests." The flier stated that Iwase chaired the Senate Planning, Land and Water Use Committee when his law firm received $1 million from the Bishop Estate for work on land and water issues.
But Gillmor ruled that attempts to regulate speech through the fair practices code have "the potential of prohibiting or chilling a substantial range of protected speech."
The code is such a blatant violation of the First Amendment that only a Legislature and administration oblivious to the rights of freedom of press and speech could have enacted and enforced it. This is not the only instance in which the Cayetano administration has shown insensitivity to the First Amendment.
If anyone should have those rights in a democracy, it must be candidates for public office, because they above all must be able to speak and write freely if elections are to be genuine contests.
It is wholly inappropriate for a government agency to be passing judgment on statements made by political candidates -- and censuring them for remarks it finds offensive.
The whole point of the First Amendment is to protect people from government attempts to muzzle them. The Constitution does not protect only speech that government decides is fair or responsible. The right of freedom of speech protects all statements, regardless of what government thinks of them.
There is, of course, a remedy for personally damaging statements -- the laws on libel and slander. But a court -- not the government -- makes the determination in such cases. The U.S. Supreme Court has made it especially difficult to win libel suits against public figures, in order to encourage and protect full discussion of public issues.
The Hawaii chapter of the ACLU took up this case after Star-Bulletin editors raised the issue of the fair practices code with a visiting national officer of the ACLU. This ruling by a federal judge gives fresh force to a vital constitutional right that has been neglected here.
Russia moves nuclear
weapons into Baltics
RUSSIA has long argued that all short-range nuclear weapons should be removed from Europe but instead has reportedly moved such tactical weaponry into the Baltics. While the installation may be aimed at pressuring the United States to withdraw similar weapons from Europe, Russia is hardly in a position to effectively apply such pressure.
The United States maintains some nuclear bombs for aircraft based in Europe but withdrew many missiles and other nuclear weapons from the area in the past 20 years.
Clinton administration officials say Russia last summer moved nuclear weapons onto a military base in Kaliningrad, an noncontiguous sliver of Russia along the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania. The move would be in conflict with Moscow's stated policy of keeping the Baltics free of nuclear weapons, although it would not appear to violate any legally binding arms control agreement, officials say.
The action may reflect Russia's edginess about the acceptance of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO in 1999. The Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, formerly under Soviet rule, are seeking to be the next new members of the alliance. Russia maintains that NATO expansion to the East would constitute a military threat that could undermine arms control agreements.
Russia and the United States reached nonbinding agreements in 1991 and 1992 to reduce arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons. The Russians said they had moved such weapons from Eastern Europe to more secure areas in Russia.
"If the Russians have placed tactical nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, it would violate their pledge that they were removing nuclear weapons from the Baltics, and that the Baltics should be nuclear-free," said Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon.
Russia's Baltic Fleet denied reports of movement of weapons to Kaliningrad, maintaining that it was fulfilling its obligations to keep the Baltic region a nuclear-free zone. The Baltic states expressed concern that the installation of weapons in Kaliningrad could destabilize the area.
Two senior U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports on the subject said there have been recent indications of movement of Russian nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad. They said some weapons may have been there a year or longer.
It is difficult to accept Russia's denial that it has moved tactical weapons into the Baltic region in the face of the U.S. intelligence reports, even though the Clinton administration has made no official accusation as yet. Russian refusal to acknowledge the wea-pons' presence and agree to their removal could present the incoming Bush administration with a need to formulate an effective responsive even as its top officials are moving into their offices.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
Frank Bridgewater, Acting Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
