First Amendment Watch

In two landmark first amendment cases today, the Supreme Court ruled:

* Pro-life attack ads against Russ Feingold: Protected.
* BONG HiTS 4 JESUS: Not protected.

Precious freedoms trampled, etc, etc. In the Right to Life case, McCain-Feingold was basically gutted, to everyone’s delight, on the grounds that a factual, issue-based anti-Feingold advertisement by Wisconsin Right to Life did not explicitly advocate voting against him, and in that gray area of intent, the court should come down on the side of speech, not restriction.

In Morse v. Frederick, the court found that a nonsense message about a bong could be “reasonably” construed as an endorsement of drug use, and therefore was not protected speech.

Try to guess the vote split in each case. No, try to guess. You might be surprised!

J/k no you won’t.

Justices Loosen Restrictions on Campaign Ads [NYT]