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.

[jwpjr]

This whole campaign finance thing has become just too complicated. The only requirements should be that you are a LEGAL American resident and you MUST report the donation for publishing on the Internet IMMEDIATELY. Letting the world know who is giving what to whom is much better than a host of confusing, restrictive laws.

[gpapa]

This is the second time Justices Roberts and Alito have diverted from the conservative, originalist position on a major item to come before the Court.

In the CFR decision, unlike Kennedy, Scalia & Thomas, they failed to recognize that the 30-60 ad rule was unconstitutional.

In the PBA decision, unlike Scalia & Thomas, Roberts & Alito joining Kennedy in the majority decision, failed to recognize that abortion was not a constitutional issue, and laws with respect to that issue should be left with the States.

[Inquisitive1]

...weakening a key provision of a landmark campaign finance law.

Alternive: Restoring 1st Amendment rights.

[cinives]

Excellent point !

[oh8eleven]

EVERYTHING pisses him off.

[eureka!]

Good quote...

[MrB]

They’ll do exactly the same thing when the DC gun ban appeal comes before them.

Rather than make a decision on the “individual right” protected by the 2nd, they’ll make some other ruling that upholds the repeal of the gun ban without affirming the individual right to firearms.

[neverdem]

Reading takes time, too. The news ain't that great.

It's much better than a loss.

[Inquisitive1]

...Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by his conservative allies

Objective journalism at its finest.

[eureka!]

Time will tell but you’re probably right...

[kabar]

The Bush administration urged the court to ban the ads, arguing that they were meant to influence the elections, not lobby the senators.

Another Bush reversal. He should never have signed the bill in the first place when he expressed his doubts about its constitutionality. Now he is supporting that it remain intact. What's up with this guy?

[GoldCountryRedneck]

Yea, I wonder why Roberts and Alito were unwilling to overturn the 30 and 60 day speech limits.

I see the SCOUS leaning more and more to restricting rulings to "the specific issue at hand".

It does open the door to other, broader, legal CFR challenges...

[Valin]

Why? Because it’s not perfect?

[kabar]

Agree. They were ruling on the merits and legal issues of the case itself, and not extrapolating and expanding the ruling. That is in keeping with not being an activist judge.

[syriacus]

we will probably see anti-candidate ads thinly disguised as issue ads.

Sounds to me like the court has provided a good bit of leeway.

As Vince Lombardi and the Packers illustrated, a lot can be accomplished by using the openings in the opposition to "Run to daylight."

[Old Professer]

They should have; what makes anyone think that they can protect the voter from any statement?

Judgement is critical to living and failing to exercise it is personal; disallowing it is abuse of power.

They are actually having a ceremony “to bury the N-word,” that’s about as silly as it ought get; yet the less-discussed limitations on what can or should be said aren’t treated with the same emotion.

Even here we will get kicked out if we shit in the wrong place.

[elizabetty]

From Chief Justice Roberts decision:

“Discussion of issues cannot be suppressed simply because the issues may also be pertinent in an election. Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.”

[Antoninus]

Wonder what went wrong with Roberts/Alito.

They're Bush appointees. I'm preparing myself for their first abortion ruling. Considering what Bush has become--and what his father was, I'm ready to be horribly disappointed.

[elizabetty]

It appears that the bad news is that Roberts and Alito didn’t go along with Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy, because it seems that the three of them were ready to scrap McCain-Feingold altogether

The Chief is saying that is not what they are to decide in this case.

Here is his closing paragraph:

.... we have gotten this far in the analysis without quoting the Amendment itself: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." The Framers' actual words put these cases in proper perspective. Our jurisprudence over the past 216 years has rejected an absolutist interpretation of those words, but when it comes to drawing difficult lines in the area of pure political speech-between what is protected and what the Government may ban-it is worth recalling the language we are applying. McConnell held that express advocacy of a candidate or his opponent by a corporation shortly before an election may be prohibited, along with the functional equivalent of such express advocacy.

We have no occasion to revisit that determination today.

But when it comes to defining what speech qualifies as the functional equivalent of express advocacy subject to such a ban—the issue we do have to decide—we give the benefit of the doubt to speech, not censorship. The First Amendment’s command that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech” demands at least that. The judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia is affirmed. It is so ordered. Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J

[wagglebee]

Correct, Roberts wrote that opinion; however, the article indicates that Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy were prepared to overturn McCain-Feingold altogether.