FREE SPEECH FOR SOME

It should be no surprise that the Arizona Republic editorially supports Scottsdale’s newly passed ban on political signs, which is blatantly unconstitutional.
That’s because limits on political speech — whether federal campaign limits, our state Clean Elections law, or bans on political signs — have the same effect: they empower the mainstream media.
By making it harder for political candidates to reach voters with their message or even their name, the influence of the mainstream media is proportionately greater.
Political speech — which enables candidates to reach voters so they can make informed decisions about their leaders — is at the very core of the First Amendment’s purposes.
Yet liberals and the mainstream media want to restrict the ability of candidates to communicate with voters.
Meanwhile, those same liberals — and their allies in the judiciary — are happy to use the First Amendment to protect the ability of pornographers to reach children — something the framers of the First Amendment would have found outrageously wrong.