Supreme Court Overturns Decision Barring Wisconsin Anti-Abortion Ads

FOXNews.com ^ | 24 January 2006

[Aussie Dasher]

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday that a lower court should take a new look at a challenge to federal restrictions on political advertisements, delaying a major ruling on the constitutionality of ad limits until after this year's elections.

Justices could have used the case, brought by an anti-abortion group, to spell out when so-called grass-roots ads are allowed at election time.

Without dealing with that issue, the court overturned a decision that barred Wisconsin Right to Life from broadcasting ads that mentioned a senator during his 2004 re-election campaign.

In an unsigned opinion, justices said that the Supreme Court's 2003 ruling upholding a federal campaign finance law left the door open for future challenges that the law, in practice, violated free-speech rights.

"This could be an important first step toward undermining (the 2003 ruling) without overruling it," said Richard Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School.

The case now returns to a three-judge federal panel in Washington, although it could be back before the Supreme Court later this year.

"It is certainly our hope this can be dealt with promptly so that now, not only we will know, everyone will know what type of lobbying ads are permitted," said James Bopp Jr., the attorney for the Wisconsin group.

[Aussie Dasher]

Sign of things to come?

[taxesareforever]

Aw, another breath of fresh air from the Court. It has been a long long wait.

[zzen01]

Election Mean things!

[Gordongekko909]

No kidding. Political speech is supposed to have the highest degree of protection offered by the First Amendment. It's the life's breath of democracy.

Good to see that the Court wants to breathe some of it back in.

[Robert A Cook PE]

"Overturned a decision .. that barred."

I just "love" how you have to re-read these things three times just to figure out what happened.

At least here, the SC read the First Amendment.

[Nateman]

Glad it's delayed until O'Conner is GONE!

[Giant Conservative]

That the ads were ever barred is Orwellian. The whole "campaign finance reform" law should be ruled un-Constitutional ASAP. It is entirely incompatable with the First Amendment's protection of free speech.

[KeyWest]

Probably the wait is for Alito.

[libstripper]

CFR is just a part of an overall leftist attempt to destroy free speech. This rather long article and its accompanying FR thread show all of it: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1563824/posts

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Sign of things to come?"

---

Hopefully.

IIRC, this case originated when Wisconsin Right-to-Life ran ads highlighting how Senator Russ Feingold (of McCain-Feingold infamy) had voted consistently in favor of abortion, even voting against the partial-birth abortion ban, and Feingold went crying to a judge to make them stop telling the truth about his record, using the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law to quash dissent. That idiot Feingold should have just kept quiet about the abortion ads, since polls showed him well ahead in the Senate race, and since a right-to-life group barred from placing an issue-advocacy ad that mentions a candidate's name was obviously the greatest threat to the "constitutionality" of McCain-Feingold. But Feingold got greedy and he got burned.

[Sacajaweau]

They knew when it passed that at least part of it was more than likely unconstitutional and would wind up in the courts. Hey, lawyers have to eat, too.

[cotton1706]

It has been a long long wait.

Yeah. 11 years.