When Paul Revere took his famous midnight ride into Lexington, yelling “The British are coming, the British are coming,” no one heard him add, “This message provided by the Patriots' Committee for Independence, Samuel Adams, chairman, John Hancock, treasurer.”

Leave it up to our Georgia State Ethics Commission to say, 224 years later, that under Georgia law he would have had to.

When Fayette citizen Carl Avrit made the fateful decision last September of warning people that taxes were coming, taxes were coming, unless people showed up at the polls to oppose them, he could hardly imagine then that his patriotic act would embroil him in what appears to be a major First Amendment issue.

That issue is whether the government can compel people to dilute their political messages with costly and largely meaningless additions. Like a sales tax that adds to the price without adding to the value of an article, these additions burden and weigh down the important messages to which they are attached.

The Avrit case, like many others, is the result of circumstances, and totally unintended, I am sure, by Mr. Avrit. A broadside born of pettiness is what gave it life, and while most of the buckshot missed the target, one pellet struck what is turning out to be a vital artery of our freedoms, the right of free speech emblazoned in our First Amendment.

So Mr. Avrit, out of patriotism, sponsored phone calls warning our citizens that extra sales taxes were coming unless they showed up at the polls to oppose them. Does the government, which wanted to increase our taxes, have the right to set up barriers to our awakening the citizenry to its plans? Is it wrong to encourage people to vote? (Judging from recent newspaper reports, the mayor of Peachtree City is likely to say No.) Is it right to impose costly requirements on citizens who want to encourage people to vote? How far can the government go?

The most recent newspaper accounts we have indicate that Mr. Avrit plans to appeal the Dec. 20 state Ethics Commission's decision to require identifying tags, costly in both money and impact, on organized phone solicitations related to elections. I am grateful that we have a judicial system that would allow him to do just that.

While a decision at the superior court level will hardly be more meaningful than the state Ethics Commission's decision, the next level of decision-making could make legal history. In fact, this case has the potential to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that could affect the whole country.

When I read newspaper editorials purporting to give advice to Kremlin leaders about Chechnya, or about events in Bangladesh or China, I often think what a waste of time and paper all that is. There are serious legal issues right here at home that are plainly overlooked, and which it would be more useful to consider.

In the Avrit case, the issue is how far can the government go in regulating what people say to influence voters. This case, if approached from a broad enough perspective, could result in our getting the government off our backs when we, the people, are about to make our ballot box decisions. A lot of good might eventually come from this case, and it might do Paul Revere proud!

Claude Y. Paquin
Fayette County

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