Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2006)
- Docket
- 06-969
- Decided
- 2006-01-01
Summary
Question: Is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act's ban on the use of corporate treasury funds for political advertisements in the 60 days before an election unconstitutional as applied to advertisements that do not explicitly endorse or oppose a candidate? Conclusion: Yes. By a 5-4 vote the Court ruled that BCRA's limitations on political advertising were unconstitutional as they applied to issue ads like WRTL's. Chief Justice John Roberts's majority opinion held that the ads were genuine issue ads, not express political advocacy or its functional equivalent (which Congress can concededly regulate). The Court held that McConnell v. FEC did not establish the test that any ad intended to influence an election and having that effect is express advocacy. Such a test would be open-ended and burdensome, would lead to bizarre results, and would "unquestionably chill a substantial amount of political speech." Instead, the Court adopted the test that "an ad is the functional equivalent of express advocacy only if the ad is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate." The Court further held that the compelling state interests invoked by the government to regulate advocacy did not apply with equal force to genuine issue ads. Neither the interest in preventing corruption nor the goal of limiting the distorting effects of corporate wealth was sufficient to override the right of a corporation to speak through ads on public issues. This conclusion, the Court held, was necessary in order to "give the benefit of the doubt to speech, not censorship." The dissent by Justice Souter called WRTL's ads indistinguishable from political advocacy ads and accused the majority of implicitly overruling McConnell v. FEC .