According to an article in Roll Call today from Washington, D.C., senior "Democratic Members" of both Houses of Congress have told the press that their ethics reforms in the new Congress will stop with the current lobbyist reforms and that new 527 committee reforms will not be considered. If that is the situation, and in light of a Federal Court’s decision in Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC and John McCain, which emasculated late election regulation of 527’s speech in Federal elections, the only thing that can now stop unlimited corporate and union issues advocacy during Federal elections in the 2008 cycle is if the U.S. Supreme Court reverses the Wisconsin Right to Life decision. Legal observers note that Justice Alito, who replaces Justice O’Connor in the prior divided decision upholding regulation of 527s per the McCain, Feingold law, may be more inclined to see the case as a First Amendment infringement and uphold the lower court.
