It has been five years since the Congress passed the so called Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 20902 [BCRA]. It was co-authored by Senators Russel Feingold {D-Wis}, who at the time was running unopposed in a primary election, and John McCain {R-AZ}. President Bush signed the BCRA into law. Some believe the president signed it because he felt sure it would be overturned as being unconstitutional by SCOTUS, Since it did damage our first Amendment rights.

This federal law made it a FELONY to use corporate funds, like dues from the NRA OR AARP, pro-life groups, unions and other grassroots groups to run ads 30 days before primary elections, and 60 days before general elections, IF THEY MENTIONED a candidate's NAME!

The first time this law was tested at the SCOTUS level was December,2003, the case was McConnell vrs The Federal Election Commission [FEC}this challenge was led by Senator Mitch McConnell {R_KY}. However in a 5 to 4 decision the court upheld the constitutionality of BCRA. But that was before Sandra Day O'Connor resigned and Chief Justice William Rehnquist died. They were, after much turmoil, replaced by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. It was Justice O'Connor that provided the swing vote that formed the majority opinion upholding BCRA! With the make-up of the court in 2003, the effort was doomed to failure.

However  in a stunning turnaround that summer a new case was heard by SCOTUS, IT was the FEC vrs Wisconsin Right to life, inc {WRTL}. WTRL wanted to tell voters that Senator Russell Feingold {remember him? he that co-authored the BCRA} was leading a movement to filibuster, President Bush's judicial nominees. The ads would call on voters to to "encourage" Feingold to change his mind, As I stated earlier the BCRA would stop any ads naming Feingold, due to the blackout period created by the act. The filibuster effort was aided by Senators Chuck the Schmuck Schumer{D_NY} and Drunken Ted Kennedy {D_MASS} was designed to kill any up or down vote on any Bush nominee, who were not seen as 'LIBERAL' The Scotus agreed with WTRL, the ads succeeded and Roberts and Alito were installed as the new Chief Justice and new Justice. The Majority Opinion was written by a newly installed Chief Justice Roberts, with justices Stevens, Souter. Ginsburg and Breyer crying like babies in their soup of dissent and defeat. Roberts pointed out that the Law BCRA as applied to 'ISSUE' ads is unconstitutional. This opinion directly contradicted the 2003 ruling SCOTUS ruling, which upheld the law.

In his majority opinion Roberts wrote " Discussion of Issues cannot be suppressed simply because the issues may also be pertinent to an election" "Where the First Amendment is implicated the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor!"

In My opinion the entire Law BCRA should be abolished as unconstitutional because it curtails our freedom of speech, during the so called 'blackout periods" At no time should any Government institution be allowed to say when and where an American can speak his or her mind about a candidate, it might be my words that sway a voter to change their mind, or your words that make me change my mind and that should never be taken away from us. The entire BCRA is a bad joke and the joke is on us, the American people.