Judge makes right call in striking down Albuquerque campaign law

I woke up this morning to this Albuquerque Journal story which explained that a federal judge had overturned a local ban on corporate campaign contributions to local public officials. This is a good decision, not because “corporations are people” as some on the left would have us assume is the issue, but because one should not have to forego basic political rights due to being part of a corporate entity. In other words, it is clearly a free speech issue just as the Supreme Court correctly decided in Citizens United.

More interesting is the ban on donations from city contractors who have contracts with the City. This certainly seems to be defensible because of the clear potential for people and businesses that receive compensation from the City for services rendered to guide the political process to their own benefit, but what about City employees? Should they be banned from contributing to City elections on the same grounds? After all, many of them have axes to grind with politicians who control their wages and retirement benefits. Seems to me that the legal reasoning for banning contractors would carry over to employees as well…