Our political candidates don’t respect the Bill of Rights

Our political class wants to fix what ails America. They’ve taken a long, hard look and decided that it can be fixed if we just trash the Bill of Rights, for the public’s own good.

Two weeks ago, I decried state Assembly candidate Dawn Ortiz-Legg and the state Democratic Party’s attacks on her opponent, Jordan Cunningham, for working as a criminal defense attorney (among other jobs he’s had).

I wrote that I couldn’t remember the last time a candidate was attacked for the people he represented as a defense attorney — a right enshrined in the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution. The next day, the Republican National Committee released an ad attacking Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine for the same thing.

Stay classy, GOP.

Tiny-fingered vulgarian and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wants to open up the libel laws to make it easier for him to sue people in the media who hurt his oversized and undeserved ego.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is no big fan of the First Amendment, either. Clinton, disappointed that the Supreme Court refused to let the Federal Election Commission ban a documentary film that was unflattering to her highness, has vowed to reverse the Citizens United decision.

Make no mistake. Both Trump and Clinton want to reshape the First Amendment to their liking. If you don’t like it, well … shut up.

Here in California, the war on the Second Amendment continues apace as Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, aided by dishonest fact-checker Politifact California, pushes Proposition 63. The so-called “Safety for All” initiative respects Californians’ Second Amendment rights much the same way Trump respects women.

Second Amendment proponents often say that when seconds matter, the police are only minutes away. Newsom seeks to double down on this farce that all you need to do is dial 911 by requiring up to a 30-day wait and a $50 fee before you can buy ammunition for a gun you already own.

Newsom and his hoplophobic supporters believe that the criminally minded who already have managed to get a gun will somehow be stymied by this new background check law on ammunition.

Nationally, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer recently opined that the Second Amendment only applies to state militias — a decidedly ahistorical view — and doesn’t afford you a right to keep a gun in your home for self-defense.

Breyer does not keep a gun in his home for self-defense. He keeps Secret Service agents with guns around him for his own defense.

Locally, because the serfs in San Luis Obispo can’t be trusted with ensuring their own well-being, the city continues its own assault on the Fourth Amendment with its rental inspection program.

Councilman and county supervisor-hopeful Dan Carpenter is pushing an initiative to overturn the law, and late last week two landlords filed suit over the program. Mayor Jan Marx has promised to review the program next year, after she’s been re-elected.

One thing is clear: If San Luis Obispo residents want to save the city legal fees better spent on just about anything other than defending an unconstitutional law, they might want to adjust the composition of the council on Nov. 8.

And then there’s the least respected amendment of them all, the 10th: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Clinton is promising free college tuition for the poor and middle class under authority granted the federal government under … sorry, but you’re going to have to look long and hard to find any authority given the federal government over college education.

Likewise, his orangeness, Trump, promises a paid maternity leave plan influenced by his daughter, Ivanka, an independent, under authority provided by Article … nope, not there either.

Take heart. Amid all this despair, there is one bright spot. The Third Amendment continues to be as inviolate as the day it was passed.

When the American people are consulted, nearly two-thirds of them say the nation is on the wrong track. Targeting the Bill of Rights won’t solve our nation’s problems. In fact, a good case can be made that ignoring the Bill of Rights has been the cause of many of our problems.

This story was originally published October 15, 2016 at 2:57 PM with the headline "Our political candidates don’t respect the Bill of Rights."