Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (551 U.S. 449)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 25, 2007 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 551 U.S. 449 · 127 S. Ct. 2652
- Decided
- June 25, 2007
- Term
- October Term 2006
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Roberts
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
- Constitutional ruling
- Federal law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Roberts announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, and an opinion with respect to Parts III and IV, in which Justice Auto joins. Section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), 116 Stat. 91, 2 U. S. C. §441b(b)(2) (2000 ed., Supp. IV), makes it a federal crime for any corporation to broadcast, shortly before an election, any communication that names a federal candidate for elected office and is targeted to the electorate. In McConnell v. Federal Election Comm’n, 540 U. S. 93 (2003), this Court considered whether §203 was facially overbroad under the First Amendment because it captured within its reach not only campaign speech, or “express advocacy,” but also speech about public issues more generally, or “issue advocacy,” that mentions a candidate for federal office. The Court concluded that there was no overbreadth concern to the extent the speech in question was the “functional equivalent” of express campaign speech. Id., at 204-205, 206. On the other hand, the Court “assume[d]” that the interests it had found to “justify the regulation of campaign speech might not apply to the regulation of genuine issue ads.” Id., at 206, n. 88. The Court nonetheless determined that §203 was not facially overbroad. Even assuming §203 “inhibited] some constitutionally protected corporate and…
Excerpt of a 56,997-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.