May 9, 2006 -- Court Denies Injunction in Challenge to BCRA

Today a three judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied the Christian Civic League of Maine's (CCL) motion for preliminary injunction in CCL v. FEC . The CCL sought to enjoin the enforcement of BCRA's prohibition on use of corporate general treasury funds to pay for "electioneering communications," arguing that its proposed ad constitutes "grass roots lobbying" and may not constitutionally be regulated.

" Today's decision reaffirms BCRA's electioneering communications provision against a challenge designed to have much broader implications than this individual case ," explained Trevor Potter, former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission and president of the Campaign Legal Center. " The Court held that free speech and lobbying could flourish without using corporate funds for the radio ad as proposed by the Maine group ."

The court recognized that "the League's proposed 'grass roots lobbying' exception would seriously impair the government's compelling interest in protecting the integrity of the electoral process," because "candidates or their allies could easily schedule an issue for 'legislative consideration' during the run-up to an election as a pretext for broadcasting a particular subliminal electoral advocacy advertisement."

The court's decision and order can be found on the Campaign Legal Center Web site here.

The Campaign Legal Center serves as part of the legal team representing defendant-intevenors Senators McCain and Feingold and Representatives Shays, Meehan and Allen.

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