Colbert candidacy illegal?

We all know that Stephen Colbert's candidacy is a joke -- but still, if he wants to run, as a joke or not, he should be allowed to do so. That having been said, the Colbert candidacy seems to be exposing some election laws that I would consider to be questionable under the 1st Amendment. Brit Hume's Political Grapevine on Fox News reports that "the entire production cost of his show could be considered an illegal "in-kind" corporate donation — and he could be cited for using network employees on campaign activities." The first certainly violates the Constitution, if we take seriously the Supreme Court's ruling that money = speech. The second part makes no sense to me at all -- what difference does it make to anyone what your employees are doing, so long as you are paying them?

Campaign finance has historically constributed, and continues to contribute, to increased political corruption in the U.S. More and more restrictions have in fact resulted in more and more problems and indirect help for the candidates, etc. If we had a simple law that you could donate anything you wanted, whether you were a private individual or a corporation, to whomever you wanted, but all donations had to be completely transparent, almost all of our money corruption would be gone. People need to know who is buying you off.

But there seems to be something else going on as well. The election officials are telling Colbert that he cannot continue making a living if he wants to run for office. How many of our election laws make it practically impossible for one to work? The result of this is that we no longer have the "citizens legislature" this country was intended to have -- where being in Congress was a part-time job. What we have now is a professional class of legislators -- the complete opposite of what the Founding Fathers wanted. And we have gotten the kind of government one expects from having professional legislators: one completely disconnected from the real world.

We need to return to the citizen's legislature. Not only should politicians be allowed to keep whatever job they have -- I would go a step further and require they have another job. Next, the Congress should not be allowed to be in session more than 100 days a year. They can all fly in on weekends, meet for two weeks during summer break, and even use internet teleconferencing to meet. With modern technology, Congress doesn't have to meet in Washington, D.C.

So I hope that Colbert continues with his joke -- and I hope too that Colbert sues the government for attempting to violate his 1st Amendment rights by attempting to enforce illegal and ill-conceived election laws.