Ramtin Arablui and Randa Abdelfattah

It was kicked off by Justice Samuel Alito.

You think that if a book was published, a campaign biography that was the functional equivalent of express advocacy...

At oral argument, there's a critical moment where the deputy solicitor general, Malcolm Stewart, who represented the U.S.

government and the FEC in this case, gets engaged with this back and forth with Justice Alito.

And Justice Alito starts to wonder if this sort of ban could be justified in the same way maybe a federal ban on books could be justified.

And a publisher that is a corporation could be prohibited from selling a book?

Well, of course, the –

The statute contains its own media exemption for media.

But I'm not asking what the statute says.

The government's position.

And Alito is kind of like a dog with a bone.

He just won't let go of this point.

So he keeps going after Stewart.

The government's position is that the First Amendment allows the banning of a book.

if it's published by a corporation.

He tries to say this is not really what this case is about, which was true.

But then Alito says, well, like, what's the answer?

Could we ban corporate money from funding a book that engages in political advocacy?

And ultimately, Stewart says... We could prohibit the publication of the book.

using the corporate treasury fund.