SUPREME COURT CASE

An anti-abortion group in Milwaukee faced the Supreme Court on Tuesday in a case that challenges a 2002 federal campaign-finance law that prevents nonproft groups from airing ads that mention political candidates in the weeks before an election, reports Bloomberg News. Wisconsin Right to Life broadcast television advertisements in July 2004 urging viewers to contact U.S. senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl to ask them to oppose filibustering. Under the campaign-finance law, the Federal Election Commission threatened to prohibit the ad, arguing that it was illegal to run an advertisement mentioning candidates for office in the months preceding an election. The nonprofit group sued the commission when it said the ad could not run, arguing that the government was violating the Constitution by limiting charities’ free-speech rights. The organization says it was trying to influence public policy, not urge that viewers vote for either candidate—and that such policy-influencing efforts should be legal under the campaign-finance law.