When campaign money can't talk

After the high court's ruling, Congress and the FEC must find new ways to curb big money's influence in ads.

from the June 27, 2007 edition

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A Supreme Court ruling has poked a hole in a 2002 law aimed at reducing money's sway in elections. As it is, the law didn't stop $2 billion from being spent in the 2006 elections. For 2008, the floodgates are now open even wider.

Fixing the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 will require that Congress and the Federal Election Commission do a fine-combed reading of Monday's ruling by the high court. The 5-to-4 decision, dominated by a new conservative majority, raises critical constitutional issues about the balance between free-speech rights and the need of citizens not to have the votes of their lawmakers corrupted by big-monied interests.

The good news is that the court upheld two key provisions of the law. There is still a prohibition on "soft money," or donations to political parties, and a ban on radio and TV ads from unions and corporations that promote federal candidates 60 days before an election or 30 days before a primary. At the least, with this ruling, a slim majority of justices affirms that the First Amendment must bend somewhat for the greater good of saving democracy from the antidemocratic power of unions and corporations.

But the court, or rather Chief Justice John Roberts writing alone, ruled that any ads which "may reasonably be interpreted as something other than an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate" must be allowed. In other words, ads about political issues that also negatively mention an incumbent lawmaker running for office are legitimate expressions of opinion.

"Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor," he wrote.

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