Justices Loosen Ad Restrictions in Campaign Finance Law: "WASHINGTON, June 25 -- The Supreme Court on Monday took a sharp turn away from campaign finance regulation, opening a wide exception to the advertising restrictions that it upheld when the McCain-Feingold law first came before it four years ago.

In a splintered 5-to-4 decision, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that as interpreted broadly by federal regulators and the law's supporters, the restrictions on television advertisements paid for from corporate or union treasuries in the weeks before an election amounted to censorship of core political speech unless those advertisements explicitly urge a vote for or against a particular candidate.

'Where the First Amendment is implicated,' the chief justice said, 'the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.'

Consequently, Chief Justice Roberts said, the only advertisements that can be kept off the air in the pre-election period covered by the law -- the 30 days before a primary election and the 60 days before a general election -- are those that are 'susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.'

Describing and then dismissing the rationale for the advertising restrictions, Chief Justice Roberts used a phrase that seemed to sum up the new majority's view toward campaign finance regulation. 'Enough is enough,' the chief justice said.

The decision was a reminder of the ways in which the justices appointed by President Bush are moving the court. While Chief Justice Roberts's predecessor, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, was a dissenter when the court upheld the law four years ago, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was in the 5-to-4 majority. Her successor, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., voted with Chief Justice Roberts on Monday, and in fact was the only justice to join his opinion fully."

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