Good news for free speech -- so the Left hate it

I can do no better than to quote Taranto on this:

"Next month before the usual October start to its term, the U.S. Supreme Court will hold an unusual rehearing of a case it declined to decide in the 2008-09 term, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. This case involves the regulation of campaign speech, and the court is expected to consider whether to overturn a pair of precedents: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), which held that a ban on corporate funding of campaigns does not violate the First Amendment, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), which upheld a ban on corporate-funded speech that so much as mentions the name of a political candidate.

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post is alarmed at the prospect:

Overruling Austin would be a disaster, and curtailing McCain-Feingold [the statute upheld in McConnell] only slightly less so. The floodgates would be opened for corporations, and labor unions, to run ads supporting or attacking candidates--not only in federal campaigns, but in the 22 states that now prohibit such spending. The only restriction would be that they couldn’t give to candidates directly.

Imagine the 2010 election in a post-Austin world, with drug companies going after members of Congress who vote against their interests, or banks targeting lawmakers who backed tighter regulation. It’s not as if these industries lack political power now, but consider what kind of legislation would result if lawmakers had to fear that an industry they defied could spend an unlimited amount to defeat them at the next election.

It would be a disaster! The floodgates would be open! But to what exactly? It’s important to note that when Marcus refers to “attacking candidates,” she does not mean it literally. No one asserts that the First Amendment protects murder and mayhem. No, what we’re about here is criticizing candidates--also known as free speech. And this is political speech, traditionally understood to be at the very core of First Amendment protection.

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