May 10, 2006

The pernicious effects of the 5-4 McConnell v. FEC decision show their face in Maine: a district court judge enforced a prior restraint on a television ad asking voters to lobby their Senator on an upcoming legislative debate because some voters might take it as an attack on Olympia Snowe, who is running for re-election, albeit currently unopposed in the primary. SCOTUSblog has extensive details and a link to the district court opinion. I'm not inclined to agree with Judge Bork that speech with sexual content should have substantially less First Amendment protection than political speech, but I'm quite confident that I agree with him that it shouldn't be the other way around.