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From: http://techandpolitics.blogspot.com/2009/03/audacity-of-luke.html

The Audacity of Luke

From Sunday’s fantastic Rich Lord story [in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette] on Pittsburgh’s Pay to Play politics comes this gem of a quote from Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, who, when asked about existing laws that prohibit pay-to-play practices, declared such laws as both unconstitutional and un-American.

“I don’t believe that a person that decides to contribute to my campaign or others should be punished for doing so,” he said. “It violates that person’s First Amendment right [to expression], and is really as un-American as something can be.”

First off … where does the Constitution say that anti pay-to-play legislation is a violation of free speech? Have you ever even read the Constitution?

…The mayor’s statement in defiance of pay-to-play legislation shows once and for all that Luke Ravenstahl is Pittsburgh’s own version of George W. Bush — a native son of a political family who is not only clueless, and gutless, but has the audacity to tell us that something we support and he does not support is “un-American …”