Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.
Famously, the First Amendment protects our right to talk. And laws limiting that right based on the content of the talking are, well, content-based. But wait! What if, instead of being triggered by the "content" of speech, the law can be portrayed as being triggered by the "purpose, focus, and circumstance" of the speech? According to the Second Circuit, that's the perfect loophole. According to other courts, it's a ham-fisted way to circumvent the First Amendment. IJ's latest cert petition invites the Supreme Court to weigh in.
New on the Short Circuit podcast: Three Stanford professors (Jud Campbell, Jonathan Gienapp, and Orin Kerr) look under the hood of originalism in the federal courts of appeals.
