If you are unsure as to whether Democrats intend to use government force to suppress speech, look toward Los Angeles. Last April, the city passed an ordinance that would require contractors to declare political contributions to a specific political action organization.
Related: The Democrat’s Rainbow Only Bends One Way, and That is Left
It is an organization dedicates to the safe and proper handling of firearms. They teach law enforcement, public and private security, and civilians about gun safety and self-defense. But Democrats hate them because they also spend money trying to block their unconstitutional overreach.
Los Angeles is full of Democrats. City ordinance 186000 required anyone wishing to do business with the City to declare whether they had ever donated to the NRA. At the time I wrote,
People do have a right to know where public money is spent. But using political force to deny legitimate businesses access to those contracts over ideological differences is, well, what the Democrat party is all about.
The ordinance violates contractors’ right to free expression, association, and speech without fear of government intimidation. It gags them from openly supporting legal and legitimate organizations or advocacy the people in power dislike. But then, that’s what the Democrats money in politics charade is all about. The transparency they seek is not about a right to awareness or cleaner fairer elections. It is the opportunity to suppress opponents with threats, mobs, and in the case of Lose Angeles, criminal consequences.
The NRA and several unnamed contractors sued. A judge had blocked the ordinance while the case proceeds.
Attorneys for LA moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the ordinance does not restrict First Amendment-protected speech or curtail membership in the NRA.
U.S District Judge Stephen V. Wilson indicated at a hearing in August that he would advance the NRA’s lawsuit amid concern over possible First Amendment violations.
In a 26-page order Wednesday, Wilson doubled down on those concerns, granting the NRA’s request for a preliminary injunction and writing that it’s unclear LA’s ordinance succeeds in its goal of advancing stricter gun laws by reducing pro-gun advocacy.
I hope that the lower courts will put an end to this nonsense if for no other discernible reason than that this has no hope of surviving at the US Supreme Court. But if it has to make that journey, LA won’t be able to enforce it. Not they aren’t already discriminating against contractors if they know they support groups like the NRA.
They don’t need an ordinance for that.
