Today the Supreme Court ruled on three cases. I can’t speak to the third, but two - one on free speech and one on the Second Amendment - are victories for individual rights.

In Davis v. FEC the court invalidated the so-called “Millionaires Amendment” of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance speech regulation.

While BCRA does not impose a cap on a candidate’s expenditure of personal funds, it imposes an unprecedented penalty on any candidate who robustly exercises that First Amendment right, requiring him to choose between the right to engage in unfettered political speech and subjection to discriminatory fundraising limitations. The resulting drag on First Amendment rights is not constitutional simply because it attaches as a consequence of a statutorily imposed choice. Id., at 54–57, and n. 65, distinguished. The burden is not justified by any governmental interest in eliminating corruption or the perception of corruption, see id., at 53. Nor can an interest in leveling electoral opportunities for candidates of different personal wealth justify §319(a)’s asymmetrical limits, see id., at 56–57. The Court has never recognized this interest as a legitimate objective and doing so would have ominous implications for the voters’ authority to evaluate the strengths of candidate competing for office. Finally, the Court rejects the Government’s argument that §319(a) is justified because it ameliorates the deleterious effects resulting from the tight limits federal election law places on individual campaign contributions and coordinated party expenditures.

Importantly, the Court outright rejected the speech rationing theory that fundamentally underlies the entire McCain-Feingold scheme. McCain’s speech regulations have always had to claim they were designed to combat corruption, when corruption was more a smokescreen for McCain self-professed goal of getting money out of politics (i.e. speech rationing). Now if only the Court will reexamine the dubious anti-corruption justification.

(For more on campaign finance regulations and speech rationing I recommend this article by Constitutional lawyer Erik Jaffe.)

In the second and more high profile case the Court ruled in DC v. Heller that indeed the Second Amendment does include an individual right to bear arms. Importantly, the five member majority was clear and unambiguous:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.
(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.
(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved. Pp. 22–28.