concluding that there was a reasonable expectation that an ideological organization would again be subject to a federal law that restricted the content of its political advertisements in the period shortly before primary and general federal elections because the organization “credibly claimed that it planned on running materially similar future targeted broadcast ads . . . within the blackout period”
How later courts described this case
- concluding that there was a reasonable expectation that an ideological organization would again be subject to a federal law that restricted the content of its political advertisements in the period shortly before primary and general federal elections because the organization “credibly claimed that it planned on running materially similar future targeted broadcast ads . . . within the blackout period”
- holding that the First Amendment demands that an "objective" standard govern political speech, and that such a standard must "entail minimal if any discovery, to allow parties to resolve disputes quickly without chilling speech through the threat of burdensome litigation" and "eschew the open-ended rough-and-tumble of factors" which invites "complex argument" and "appeal"
- holding that the plaintiff's challenge to a law making it a crime to run ads mentioning political candidates within a certain number of days before an election was not moot based on the plaintiff's assertion that it intended to run " 'materially similar' future targeted broadcast ads mentioning a candidate" before future elections (citation omitted)
- explaining an exception to mootness “applies where (1) the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to cessation or expiration, and (2) there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subject to the same action again” (quotation marks omitted)
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Questioned by California Pro-Life Council, Inc. v. Randolph, 507 F.3d 1172 (2007)
— U.S. -, 127 S.Ct. 2652, 168 L.Ed.2d 329, called into question the analysis reflected in
The opinion
Justice Alito,
concurring.
I join the principal opinion because I conclude (1) that §203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, 2 U. S. C. §441b(b)(2) (2000 ed., Supp. IV), as applied, cannot constitutionally ban any advertisement that may reasonably be interpreted as anything other than an appeal to vote for or against a candidate, (2) that the ads at issue here may reasonably be interpreted as something other than such an appeal, and (3) that because §203 is unconstitutional as applied to the advertisements before us, it is unnecessary to go further and decide whether §203 is unconstitutional on its face. If it turns out that the implementation of the as-applied standard set out in the principal opinion impermissibly chills political speech, see post, at 496-497 (Scalia, J., joined by Kennedy and Thomas, JJ., concurring in part and concur *483 ring in judgment), we will presumably be asked in a future Case to reconsider the holding in McConnell v. Federal Election Comm’n, 540 U.S. 93 (2003), that §203 is facially constitutional.