In Wisconsin Right to Life's McCain-Feingold Challenge WRTL Takes Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

On May 23, Wisconsin Right to Life ("WRTL") appealed the district court's dismissal of its lawsuit seeking to establish an exception for grass-roots lobbying to the McCain-Feingold law's prohibition on corporate funding of "electioneering communications." This appeal goes directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The district court said that McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93 (2003), precludes all as-applied challenges to the electioneering prohibition.

The suit was filed in August 2004 seeking an injunction against applying the broadcast prohibition periods to WRTL's three proposed grass-roots lobbying ads and similar future ads. WRTL ran the ads until August 15, when they were banned until November 2 by the prohibition of the McCain-Feingold law (also known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, or BCRA).

The ads urged Senators Feingold and Kohl to oppose the filibusters of judicial nominees. Because Sen. Feingold was a candidate in both the Wisconsin primary and general elections, WRTL could not pay for the ads mentioning his name during the blackout period. While the 2004 election is past, WRTL desires to do such activity in the future with a good likelihood that the situation will recur, so the case does not become moot.

James Bopp, Jr., lead counsel for WRTL, commented, "We are finally before the tribunal that can say what it meant by its opinion in McConnell v. FEC, and we hope the Court will clarify that as-applied challenges such as ours are not prohibited and that grass-roots lobbying ads, about upcoming votes in Congress are not banned."

The Jurisdictional Statement, including the appendix with court orders and opinions, is available in PDF format online at the James Madison Center's website, www.JamesMadisonCenter.org.