Law Commons^™

Wrtl Ii: The Sharpest Turn In Campaign Finance's Long And Winding Road, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

In Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (WRTL II), a closely divided and fragmented Supreme Court, without a majority opinion, held that the First Amendment requires the creation of a sweeping as-applied exception to § 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), which extended the ban on the use of corporate and union treasury funds in federal election campaigns to “electioneering communication.” In so doing, the Court broke sharply with its 2003 decision in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, which had, inter alia, rejected a facial challenge to the …