The McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law will be before the Supreme Court today. Three terms ago the same law was challenged by everyone from Right to Life to Planned Parenthood, but the law was upheld. Now the pundits are arguing whether the law works to preserve democracy or pervert it, whether it should be upheld or struck down.

Bradley Smith and Stephen Hoersting argue that the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law does more to insulate politicians from criticism and squelch free speech than it does to clean up election funding.

Woody Mena doesn’t always like the issue ads that McCain-Feingold restricts, but he believes in free speech. McCain-Feingold restricts that speech, he argues.

The Washington Post says that the supreme court shouldn’t contradict its earlier ruling that upheld the McCain-Feingold law. To overturn that earlier ruling would tarnish the credibility of the court and elections to come.

Armstrong Williams doesn’t think McCain-Feingold goes far enough. The only way to make campaigns clean is to allow only public financing.

The New York Times wants to keep corporate and union money out of politics and they believe that McCain-Feingold helps do that. The “issue ads” that are at the center of the case are, they claim, “phony” commercials “intended to elect or defeat a particular candidate.”

James Bopp Jr. offers a brief history of “sham arguments” for McCain-Feingold. Free speech suffers more than the corporate accounts of politicians, he argues.