In the recent oral arguments before the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Deputy Solicitor General, Malcolm Stewart, argued that the Federal gov't has the power to ban books that advocate for a candidate within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of general elections if that book was paid for by corporate or union funds.
So despite the Constitution specifically protecting political speech, we have the deputy solicitor general of the Obama Administration claiming the power to ban books containing political speech (movies too).
So much for Hope and Change
The transcript of the oral arguments are here.
Further analysis on SCOTUSblog as follows:
Because a government lawyer pushed his argument as far as logic would carry it, an alarmed Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed poised to create a new exception to federal power to regulate what advocacy groups can say during national political campaigns. At a minimum, a 90-minute documentary, even though a bitingly critical attack on a specific candidate, leaving little doubt of what it wanted voters to do, may wind up with constitutional protection, it appeared after the Court had heard Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (08-205). But, if that is the outcome, federal regulation of other forms of campaign expression may be put in doubt anew.
When the argument turned to such First Amendment horrors as banning books, banning Internet expression, and banning even Amazon’s book-downloading technology, "Kindle," the members of the Court seemed instantly to recoil from the sweep of arguments made by Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart.
Even Justice David H. Souter, who tends to support government regulation of campaign spending, looked and sounded stunned when Stewart argued that the government would have power to forbid a labor union to use its own funds to pay an author to write a campaign biography that would later be published in book form by Random House. And, across the bench, incredulity showed when Stewart said the government could ban an advocacy group from using its own funds to pay for a 90-minute documentary if only the first minute was devoted to urging voters whom to choose, and the rest was a recital of information about the candidate without further direct advocacy.
Thanks Sens. McCain and Feingold. Thanks President Obama.