The Associated Press has this story about a three-judge panel which ruled that issue ads may run during the election season. (Via The Brothers Judd blog).
The federal government cannot prohibit advocacy groups from running issue advertisements during peak election season, a panel of federal judges ruled Thursday.
The 2-1 ruling was issued in a case involving a Wisconsin anti-abortion group that challenged congressional restrictions on ads by corporations, labor unions and other special interest groups that mention candidates two months before a general election.
Some lawmakers have predicted such a ruling would create a loophole in the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign law, which attempted to reduce the influence of big-spending special-interest groups in elections.
The case automatically heads to the Supreme Court for review.
The three-judge panel upheld the government’s right to prohibit corporate and union-sponsored advertisements that attempt to influence voters but said organizations have a First Amendment right to speak out on genuine political issues.
Wisconsin Right to Life has been fighting the law since 2004, when it sought to run an advertisement urging voters to contact Wisconsin Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, both Democrats, and ask them not to hold up President Bush’s judicial nominees...
The judges said Thursday that the Wisconsin advertisements were genuinely addressing policy, not the election, and thus were constitutionally protected speech.
This doesn't surprise me at all. You can't muzzle people from speaking out about issues two months before an election. It's absolutely contrary to the First Amendment's intentions.
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