The First Amendment has been under attack ever since the passage of federal “election reform” in 1974. The Supreme Court is about to revisit the issue of free speech when it rehears the case involving “Hillary: The Movie.” Jacob Sullum writes about the case and its importance in this Washington Times piece.
Those who want to whittle away at our constitutional freedoms like to employ the “compelling government interest” technique. That is, in order to allow the government to do something it clearly is not supposed to have authority to do, they contend that there is a “compelling governmental interest” in such and such. In the case of political speech, the “compelling interest” is in preventing “the appearance of corruption” in elections. It would be great if the Court not only ruled against the suppression of the movie, and against all such efforts, but also renounced the whole “compelling governmental interest” idea.
