More Good News

In the second great blow to the ever-expanding Leviathan this week (the first being the complete repudiation, obvious to all but the editorial writers of the NYT and some of the dimmer lights of the loony left, of the Democrats ever-expanding government trick), the SCOTUS has finally realized its original error with regard to McCain-Feingold and has re-discovered that section of the Constitution that guarantees free speech.

Although the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech,” §441b’s prohibition on corporate independent expenditures is an outright ban on speech, backed by criminal sanctions. It is a ban notwithstanding the fact that a PAC created by a corporation can still speak, for a PAC is a separate association from the corporation. Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy—it is the means to hold officials ac-countable to the people—political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence. Laws burdening such speech are subject to strict scrutiny, which requires the Government to prove that the restriction “furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.”