Screen grab from ad decrying a U.S. election candidate’s vote against funding for a rape-crisis centre. “Who is he standing up for?” the ad asks.
A grand experiment in freedom of speech in the United States seems to be backfiring, as politicians are now questioning the wisdom of a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that allows unlimited spending on election advertisements. Proponents of unfettered political speech originally hailed Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission as a godsend, but those same people now think that allowing anonymous groups, many of which have no direct ties to a political party or candidate, to spend millions on apocalyptic advertisements that make misleading or outright false assertions results in a disengaged electorate and a debasement of the democratic process. This sobering second thought is a welcome development, and an important lesson for Canada.
To be honest, the politicians and their backers who originally supported the decision but now question it are motivated partly by the fact that the advertisements of mass destruction it unleashed are being trained on them too. It's no fun to wake up to a TV spot that depicts you as a man who doesn't stand behind the victims of rape because you once voted against a bill to fund a rape-crisis centre. And it's not really fair that your opponent can disavow any responsibility for a negative ad because it was paid for and approved by a third party that represents a lobby interest that is opposed to your election over an issue entirely unrelated to the one they are using to tarnish your reputation.
The court decision's original supporters are now discussing limits and controls that, this time last year, would have been anathema to them. These include requiring the ads to be truthful; demanding full disclosure of who is paying for them and why; and making any candidate who benefits from them responsible for their content. The result of doing nothing, many fear, will be an electorate drowned out by interest groups producing ethically dubious ads that in this election cycle alone will number well over 3.5 million.
Negative political advertising in Canada is nowhere near as voluminous, but there is more of it than ever, and it too is seen as being unhealthy. It can alienate voters and cause them not to bother to cast their ballot, and it coarsens the political dialogue. This country should, like the U.S., think hard about the issue and not be willing to justify any excesses through an overly broad definition of free speech.
Editor's Note: The original version of this online editorial has been amended for clarity in the second paragraph.