Supreme Court to Hear First Amendment Case (ad limits in McCain-Feingold campaign finance law)

Palm Beach Post ^ | 1/14/06 | FREDERIC J. FROMMER

[Libloather]

Supreme Court to Hear First Amendment Case
By FREDERIC J. FROMMER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in an anti-abortion group's First Amendment challenge to advertising limits in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Wisconsin Right to Life was barred in 2004 from broadcasting ads that mentioned Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat facing re-election who co-authored the law with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. A provision of the law banned the use of corporate or union money for ads identifying federal candidates two months before a general election.

In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the law, 5-4, but Wisconsin Right to Life argues that its ads should have been allowed anyway because they constituted lobbying, not electioneering. The commercials urged people to call Feingold and Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., asking them to oppose filibustering President Bush's judicial selections.

Ironically, the court takes up the case while the Senate is debating Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, whom Democrats won't rule out filibustering. But his nomination appears headed for approval.

In the first challenge to how the law was working in practice, Wisconsin Right to Life in 2004 sought an injunction barring the Federal Election Commission from enforcing the provision against it. But a federal district court denied the request, and a month later, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist declined the group's request to intervene.

"The point of our ads was not to influence an election, but to lobby upcoming action in Congress," said James Bopp Jr., an attorney for Wisconsin Right to Life. "The ads said nothing about elections, or the senators' character, or even their positions."

But the Bush administration, which is defending the law, wrote in a brief that such an argument "assumes a clean divide between lobbying and electioneering communications that simply does not exist in the real world."

"Advertisements exhorting interested citizens to contact their elected representatives may also have the purpose of influencing those citizens' votes," the government added.

Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which supports the law, called the commercials "classic sham issue ads, right before the election."

And he noted that Wisconsin Right to Life could have run the ads had it used political action committee money, which must be raised in smaller, limited amounts.

Wisconsin Right to Life said that was not a viable option. In its filing, the group said it had only $14,000 in its PAC at the time it wanted to run the ads, which would have cost $100,000. It said there wasn't enough time to raise the money through its PAC.

"Incumbent politicians should not be able to shield themselves from lobbying about upcoming votes in Congress through campaign finance regulations," the group said in its filing.

Bopp said groups from across the political spectrum, including the liberal Alliance for Justice, filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the anti-abortion group's case.

In the 2003 case, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was an author of the court's majority opinion and provided the deciding vote. Although she will hear arguments on Tuesday, she will likely be off the court by the time it issues its ruling, assuming Alito is confirmed by the Senate.

That sets up the possibility of a 4-4 deadlock, in which case the court could either affirm the lower court ruling or schedule new oral arguments with Alito on the bench.

The case is Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission, 04-1581.

[jocon307]

"McCain-Feingold was supposed to clean up politics."

I wish I cuuld even believe in the sincerity of their motives. But all I can remember is McCain's "stop me before I get bribed again" remarks, which caused me to lose all respect for him and his sponsorship of this law. Maybe Feingold is sincere, I never heard he was corrupt in anyway, quite the opposite, but of course I could be wrong.

It is my opinion that what these pols (in both parties) want is to get so much regulation on the books that eventually they'll be back to paper bags of cash, passed under the table.

[mware]

Alito should be appointed by the State of the Union Address

[John D]

I hope McCain-Feingold is delcared unconstitutional, period.


Both McCain and Feingold are unconstitutional.