Tom Allen to Moderate Panel on Free Speech & Corporations

Former Congressman Tom Allen, the president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), will moderate a debate at BookExpo America [1] over the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to strike down limits on the money that corporations can spend in political campaigns. Allen, who represented Maine in the House of Representatives for 12 years, will join Ira Glasser, a former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who opposes campaign finance laws as a restriction on free speech, and Public Citizen President Robert Weissman, who argues that campaign finance laws prevent corporations from drowning the voices of their critics.

The hour-long program, "Free Speech for Corporations?," will be held on Thursday at 11:00 a.m. in Room 1E12. It is co-sponsored by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression [2], AAP, and the Freedom to Read Foundation.