Madison Center Files BCRA Opening Brief in Supreme Court
 

On Tuesday, July 8, 2003, Madison Center attorneys filed their opening brief in the United States Supreme Court in National Right to Life Committee v. FEC (No. 02-1733), one of the consolidated appeals challenging the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). The Madison Center represents a national political party, a member of Congress, a state attorney general, nonprofit ideological corporations, a political action committee, and a minor, who are challenging various provisions of BCRA that limit their freedom of speech and association in the name of "reform."

One key argument in the brief was that "reform" groups advocating enactment of BCRA engaged in the same sort of issue advocacy activity to pass BCRA that they condemned as corrupting when done by other ideological corporations because such activity might influence elections and politicians might feel grateful for their efforts. Common Cause and Campaign for America held town hall meetings for favored candidates, issued communications lionizing candidates promoting their brand of "reform" and sharply attacking those who didn't, issued scorecards, operated phone banks   all during peak election seasons. But when examined under oath in this case, leaders of these organizations admitted that their activity might influence elections but that it would never be corrupting. Madison Center attorneys related this telling irony to the Court and argued that what these groups said under oath (that such activity was non-corrupting) was more credible than what they argued when not under oath (that such activity is corrupting, if done by others).

Madison Center General Counsel James Bopp, Jr., comments of the "reform" groups' activity: "If the issue advocacy the so-called reform groups do is not corrupting, then why would it be corrupting when other groups advocate for issues in the same way? The answer is simple. It's not corruption. It's participatory democracy   the very essence of our system of government. And for them to admit that it's not corrupting when under oath reveals that their whole argument lacks a foundation."

A second key argument took note of the Supreme Court's reliance on a European Court of Human Rights decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the recent case recognizing a right to engage in homosexual activity. The Supreme Court's increasing reliance on foreign cases was the subject of an article today by Joan Biskupic in USA Today, entitled "Supreme Court citing more foreign cases." Madison Center attorneys cited in their brief a decision by the same court cited by our Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas (the European Court of Human Rights), called Bowman v. United Kingdom (1986), which supported a right to engage in the sort of unfettered issue advocacy BCRA seeks to ban. Another case from Canada, Harper v. Canada (2002), was cited for the same proposition.

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