Campaign finance restrictions under attack in Supremne Court

NY Times:

The Supreme Court put defenders of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law on the defensive on Wednesday in a spirited argument that suggested the court could soon open a significant loophole in the measure.

At issue is a major provision of the five-year-old law that bars corporations and labor unions from paying for advertisements that mention the name of a candidate for federal office and that are broadcast 60 days before an election or 30 days before a primary. By a 5-to-4 vote in December 2003, the court held that the provision, on its face, passed First Amendment muster.

...

The law’s most vigorous defense from the bench came from Justices Stephen G. Breyer and David H. Souter. “If we agree with you in this case, goodbye McCain-Feingold,” Justice Breyer told Mr. Bopp. His point was that there is an inextricable link between the law’s two major provisions: the advertising restriction and the ban on the receipt and expenditure by political parties of unregulated “soft money” from corporations and unions. If corporations can underwrite television ads, which are “the single best way to get somebody defeated or elected,” Justice Breyer said, then “forget the rule that corporations can’t contribute.”

...

The law has always been blatantly unconstitutional and indefensible. The contortions used by the court in its 2003 ruling should have Breyer and Souter blushing with embarrassment rather than defending the mess. Just what is ambiguous about the phrase "Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech"? Isn't political speech at the essence of the First Amendment? What makes the 2003 ruling so outrageous is that the same court says that the First Amendment protects pornography, but it does not protect political speech during a campaign.