KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part:
I believe the statute before us is unconstitutional in virtually all of its particulars; it breaks faith with the fundamental principle—understood by our nation’s Founding Generation, inscribed in the First Amendment and repeatedly reaffirmed by the United States Supreme Court—that “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964).
My colleagues’ per curiam opinion and their other opinions ignore the statute’s transparent infirmity and leave standing its most pernicious provisions, apparently on the ground that candidate focused political speech inevitably “corrupts” the individuals to whom it refers.
Their reasoning and conclusions treat a First Amendment with which I am not familiar. See Renne v. Geary, 501 U.S. 312, 349 (1991) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (“[T]he prospect that voters might be persuaded by . . . endorsements is not a corruption of the democratic political process; it is the democratic political process.” (emphasis in original))...