Matt Yglesias details the ways that McCain‐​Feingold is restricting his free speech rights. It seems that because Matt now works for a company that lacks a “media exemption,” he’s prohibited from commenting on the “character, qualifications, and fitness for office” of candidates for office. Since Matt has an extremely low opinion of one of the major presidential candidates, I imagine this is pretty hard for him.


And yet Matt doesn’t reach what seems to me the obvious conclusion: that McCain‐​Feingold is a restriction on free speech that can’t be reconciled with the First Amendment. Matt doesn’t defend McCain‐​Feingold either, and he’s said in the past that he doesn’t think McCain‐​Feingold will accomplish much. But it’s awfully hard to come up with an interpretation of “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech” that doesn’t protect Matt’s right to question the “qualifications and fitness for office” of candidates for office, or the Center for American Progress’s right to pay him to do so.


Update: Matt writes to point out that both he and his erstwhile colleagues at the American Prospect have long opposed McCain‐​Feingold as a restriction on free speech. Good for them. They’re more enthusiastic about public financing than I am, but they recognize the basic point that the First Amendment doesn’t allow Congress to restrict people from criticizing political candidates in the months before an election. It’s a pity that the “liberal” members of the McConnell court had trouble grasping the same point. Maybe they should spend less time reading the censorious New York Times editorial page and more time reading the Prospect.