by Frank James
The Supreme Court issued an opinion today that will likely result in voters seeing more political ads around election time that focus on an “issue” like abortion or immigration that are akin to bank shots in billiards, ads meant to indirectly hurt or help particular candidates.
The decision came in the case Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life Inc.
As Bloomberg News reported:
“Discussion of issues cannot be suppressed simply because the issues may also be pertinent in an election,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.”
The ruling underscores the influence of Roberts and fellow Bush appointee Samuel Alito in moving the court in a conservative direction. Roberts and Alito were joined today in the campaign ad case and two other constitutional rulings by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.
…
In the campaign-finance dispute, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy said they would have gone further than Roberts and Alito by directly overturning the 2003 ruling and striking down the so- called electioneering provision on free-speech grounds.
Justice David Souter in dissent said the court had reversed the 2003 decision in all but name and undermined efforts to reduce the role of money in electoral politics.
“After today, the ban on contributions by corporations and unions and the limitation on their corrosive spending when they enter the political arena are open to easy circumvention,” Souter wrote. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer joined him in dissent.
Feingold Candidacy
The ads by Wisconsin Right to Life Inc. referred to Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, who was up for re-election and joined Senate efforts to block votes on Bush’s judicial nominees. Feingold, along with Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, was also one of the principal sponsors of the 2002 campaign- finance law.
Wisconsin Right to Life, which also opposes euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research, pulled its ads after three weeks because of legal concerns.
The McCain-Feingold law bars corporations and labor unions from using funds from their general treasuries to buy pre- election broadcast ads that target specific federal candidates.
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