Supreme Court Ruling

Floor Speech

SUPREME COURT RULING -- (Senate - June 25, 2007)

Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President, 6 years ago I took to this floor to express the view that any campaign finance law must be written within the boundaries of the first amendment. It states:

Congress shall make no law, respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This very amendment adorns the facade of the yet-to-open Newseum a few blocks from here on Pennsylvania Avenue--a building constructed, both philosophically and physically, upon the cornerstone of our first amendment rights.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the U.S. Congress went too far 5 years ago in legislating restrictions on First Amendment rights. In its ruling this morning in Wisconsin Right to Life vs. FEC, the Court righted that wrong.

It took an important first step toward restoring the rights of organizations to petition the government and members of Congress.

The court rejected an intent-and-effect test for advertisements and instead went with a susceptible of no other reasonable interpretation than an appeal to vote for or against a candidate.

However, and most importantly, in a debatable case the tie is resolved in favor of protecting speech.

As the Chief Justice noted in his decision for the majority:

Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor:

It is fitting that this opinion should come down as we approach the Fourth of July recess, when we return home to celebrate those freedoms for which our forefathers fought and died.

What better tribute to their efforts than the affirmation of our right--not just ability--but right of freedom to speech and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

This afternoon, we will witness our new colleague from Wyoming be sworn, reminding us of the oath we all took upon election to this body to, ``Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.''

Chief Justice Roberts summed up this case and, in fact, the entire campaign finance debate so well that I would like to close with his words. He wrote:

These cases are about political speech. The importance of the cases to speech and debate on public policy issues is reflected in the number of diverse organizations that have joined in supporting Wisconsin Right to Life before this Court: the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Rifle Association, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, Focus on the Family, the Coalition of Public Charities, the Cato Institute, and many others.

In his closing paragraph, the Chief Justice reminded us what lies at the heart of this issue. After quoting the language of the first amendment, he wrote:

The Framers' actual words put these cases in proper perspective. Our jurisprudence over the past 216 years has rejected an absolutist interpretation of those words, but when it comes to drawing difficult lines in the area of pure political speech--between what is protected and what the Government can ban--it is worth recalling the language we are applying: when it comes to defining what speech qualifies as the functional equivalent of express advocacy subject to such a ban--the issue we do have to decide-we give the benefit of the doubt to speech, not censorship. The First Amendment's command that ``Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech'' demands at least that.

It is a good day for the first amendment.

I yield the floor.

Source