Expression and the court

The recently concluded term of the U.S. Supreme Court was a good one for defenders of the First Amendment.

Justices rightly threw out Arizona’s public campaign financing, which discouraged political speech. They correctly threw out a California law that bans the sale of violent video games to minors. The court upheld the free speech rights of the Westboro Baptist Church, which carries out despicable protests at military funerals, because the First Amendment was intended to protect objectionable expression. And justices properly tossed out a Vermont law that prohibits the sale of prescription information for marketing purposes.

Rarely has the high court so stridently and consistently protected the marketplace of ideas.

But all justices are not friends of the First Amendment. Sadly, the court’s liberal wing — the justices who supposedly are most concerned with individual rights and civil liberties — was far more inclined to clamp down on speech and support government regulation of expression.

Conservatives John Roberts and Antonin Scalia sided with the majority in all four aforementioned cases, as did centrist Anthony Kennedy. Justice Clarence Thomas didn’t agree with the majority in the California video game case, and Samuel Alito was the only justice to side against the Westboro Baptist Church.

Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, meanwhile, dissented in all but the Westboro case. Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented in the Arizona and Vermont cases. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the strongest First Amendment advocate of the liberal wing, joining the minority in only the Arizona case.

This trend isn’t surprising considering the Democratic Party continues to put its faith in expanded government control over personal choices, from health care to campaign contributions. The Supreme Court’s four liberal justices are — unfortunately — largely faithful to this orthodoxy.