Court loosens limits on election ads (Goodbye to 30 and 60 day restrictions on issue ads!)

yahoo.com ^ | June 25, 2007 | MARK SHERMAN

[neverdem]

Associated Press

The Supreme Court loosened restrictions Monday on corporate- and union-funded television ads that air close to elections, weakening a key provision of a landmark campaign finance law.

The court, split 5-4, upheld an appeals court ruling that an anti-abortion group should have been allowed to air ads during the final two months before the 2004 elections.

The case involved advertisements that Wisconsin Right to Life was prevented from broadcasting. The ads asked voters to contact the state's two senators, Democrats Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, and urge them not to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees.

Feingold, a co-author of the campaign finance law, was up for re-election in 2004.

The provision in question was aimed at preventing the airing of issue ads that cast candidates in positive or negative lights while stopping short of explicitly calling for their election or defeat. Sponsors of such ads have contended they are exempt from certain limits on contributions in federal elections.

Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by his conservative allies, wrote a majority opinion upholding the appeals court ruling.

The majority itself was divided in how far justices were willing to go in allowing issue ads.

Three justices, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, would have overruled the court's 2003 decision upholding the constitutionality of the provision.

Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito said only that the Wisconsin group's ads are not the equivalent of explicit campaign ads and are not covered by the court's 2003 decision.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the link & text.

[elizabetty]

Nah. If he'd have done that, they'd have had to revisit McConnell.

So now you like judicial activists and judicial supremacists?

Sheesh!!!

Your inconsistencies and complete lack of the understanding of the court have never been more clear.

I hate to break this to you, John G. Roberts, Jr is about a million times smarter than you and a far better steward of the Constitution than you and your rabble rouser buddies could ever be.

[elizabetty]

I don’t think he said that.

Huck, don't sit and guess what you think it said, read the damn thing.

The language is CLEAR!

[elizabetty]

From the Chief in the decision yesterday.

"In drawing that line, the First Amendment requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it. We conclude that the speech at issue in this as-applied challenge is not the “functional equivalent” of express campaign speech. We further conclude that the interests held to justify restricting corporate campaign speech or its functional equivalent do not justify restricting issue advocacy, and accordingly we hold that BCRA §203 is unconstitutional as applied to the advertisements at issue in these cases. "

[Huck]

We conclude that the speech at issue in this as-applied challenge is not the “functional equivalent” of express campaign speech.

In other words, the law was misapplied. It's fine to restrict campaign speech, he is saying. But issue ads that don't call on ppl to vote for someone aren't campaign speech. Were it the functional equivelant, the other side would have won.

[EternalVigilance]

It’s pretty clear that you don’t understand the meaning of those terms any more than a run-of-the-mill Democrat would.