Free Republic

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...

McCain-Feingold's Electioneering Communication Prohibition Held Unconstitutional as Applied to Genuine Grassroots Lobbying Today the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that the ban on corporate electioneering communications is unconstitutional as applied to the three grassroots lobbying ads for which Wisconsin Right to Life ("WRTL") sought judicial relief in WRTL v. FEC. Judge Leon wrote the opinion and was joined by Judge Sentelle in the majority of the three-judge court. The ads were run in 2004 when WRTL did radio and television ads urging people in Wisconsin to contact Senator Kohl and Senator Feingold and ask them to...

    The Supreme Court yesterday overturned a lower court's ruling that had barred an anti-abortion group from running television advertisements mentioning a specific senator during his 2004 re-election campaign.     At issue is a challenge by Wisconsin Right to Life (WRTL) to ad limits set by the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform law. The law bans corporate or union money from paying for ads that identify candidates for federal office by name two months before Election Day.     In what some court observers saw as a move to sidestep a major review of the law until the pending nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito...