Portions of McCain/Feingold struck down today by USSC Decision

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court on Monday swept aside part of a campaign finance law dealing with "issue ads."

The ruling could mean a greater role in the 2008 presidential campaign for advocacy groups, corporations and labor unions, which air the commercials in the weeks before voters go to the polls.

In a 5-4 ruling upholding an appeals court decision, the high court's majority concluded the specific guidelines for the issue ads -- aired mainly on television -- were overly restrictive.

Under the current law, such ads can be banned 60 days before a general election, and 30 days before a primary. That provision was a key part of the 2002 McCain-Feingold bill setting strict limits on political spending and the message behind it.

"When it comes to defining what speech qualifies as the functional equivalent of express advocacy subject to such a ban -- the issue we do have to decide -- we give the benefit of the doubt to speech, not censorship," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. (Read the opinion)

The decision was a defeat for the Bush administration and congressional supporters of the campaign reform legislation.

Court conservatives split

But the court's conservative majority was itself split on the issue. Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito took a narrow approach, saying only the issue ads in question were not subject to restrictions based on the high court's 2003 ruling upholding the broader McCain-Feingold law. Three other conservatives -- Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas -- said they supported throwing out entirely the issue ad restriction contained in McCain-Feingold.

The overall effect, however, is that such ads will almost certainly play a role in next year's federal elections, in the critical days before voters go to the polls.

In dissent, Justice David Souter warned that problems lie ahead when these ads become more prevalent.

"The understanding of voters and the Congress that this kind of corporate and union spending seriously jeopardizes the integrity of democratic government will remain," he said. "The facts are too powerful to ignore, and further efforts at campaign finance reform will come. It is only the legal landscape that now is altered."

Souter took the unusual step of reading portions of the dissent in an oral presentation from the bench. He was supported by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

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