Campaign Reform Limits Speech

* Your desire for campaign finance reform is understandable (editorial, March 19). Unfortunately, it’s also unconstitutional. The courts have held repeatedly that restricting soft-money contributions abridges free speech. Any time a person is limited in how much media can be purchased to send a message, that person’s ability to communicate is infringed.

Here’s the test: Under campaign finance reform, how much should an individual be able to contribute--$1,000, $5,000, $8,000? What the government says it should be? The answer is arbitrary. If anyone cares to remember, the 1st Amendment was written very simply as a guarantee that there would be absolutely no regulation of speech.

JOHN CHILCOTT

Santa Barbara

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* Again, Dubya is counting on America’s inability to do arithmetic (“Bush Seeks to Restrict Campaign Funds From Unions, Corporations,” March 16). He added some meaningless “restriction” on corporate political contributions so that it would not seem that his restrictions on union contributions are antilabor.

How many votes does it take to pass a resolution in most corporations? The votes are not by stockholder but by number of shares held. That implies that most corporations can pass a resolution by getting a dozen or so stockholders to agree. Some restrictions on corporations’ effects on politics!

DAVID FEIGN

Santa Ana