The real effect of the chief justice's presumption that campaign speech is protected issue advocacy is that he really believes that it is unconstitutional to ban the funding of such speech whether it's election speech or issue advocacy. That holding, however, would require expressly overruling the recent McConnell case. So, the presumption is just a fig leaf, a statement in effect that 'We honor and leave standing our recent precedent that funding of election advocacy can be restricted; we merely decide that henceforth we will never again conclude that any speech falls into that category.'
I prefer Justice Scalia's approach of honest overruling of McConnell. That doesn't mean I am happy about the terrible condition of our democracy and what money is doing to it.
This strikes me as more a comment on the disingenuous nomination hearings on Roberts and Alito, and their manipulative dishonesty on the bench, than on the campaign finance issue per se (for which, follow the link to the full original on Slate). My partial disagreement with Professor Dellinger on the "free speech" question is addressed in anther post.
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