Hi John,

Institute for Free Speech Chairman Bradley A. Smith knows a thing or two about campaign finance laws – he literally wrote a book titled Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform.

Brad, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal on p. A15 that, despite almost 50 years of Supreme Court rulings, the high Court still hasn’t answered a basic question…

Does the First Amendment allow the government to regulate political campaign speech? Here’s an excerpt:

“The Supreme Court, with increasing rigor, has held that only preventing quid pro quo corruption—the exchange of official acts for money—can justify restrictions on spending to finance political speech….

But the problem goes deeper than the need to define “corruption” and balance it against the “urgency” of political speech. There is no constitutional basis for government to regulate political speech through campaign-finance laws….

When Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971, it claimed authority under its constitutional power to regulate the “time, place and manner” of elections…. But political campaigns aren’t ‘elections.’”

Simply put, “When government regulates campaigns, it is directly and explicitly regulating protected First Amendment activity.”

You can read the rest of the article here.

On Monday, the Court agreed to hear National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission. As Brad noted in the article, the “NRSC is challenging federal limits on how much a political party can spend in coordination with its own candidates—as if it were a bad thing for a party and its candidates to work together.”

The Court will receive briefs this summer and hear oral arguments in the term starting in October. This case could set a landmark precedent.

And we may finally get a ruling that begins to limit politicians’ power to regulate criticism against themselves.

The Institute for Free Speech was the only free speech organization to file an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the case.

We are also preparing a brief on the merits of this case and will urge the Court to begin work to establish precedents to liberate campaign speech.

Please support our vital work to protect free speech for all today.