Floyd Abrams has passed along his prepared speech given as part of the annual Raymond Pryke First Amendment Lecture at UC Irvine School of Law. I blogged earlier (and linked to video) of the event here.  Floyd’s speech begins:

This week is the 40th anniversary of the oral argument in the Supreme Court of Buckley v. Valeo and next year the 40th anniversary of the decision in that case will be—depending on one’s view of the case– regretted or celebrated.  I’m a celebrant, so welcome to the party!

Buckley was a case that dealt with and addressed a number of difficult topics—limitations on the funding of issue advertisements, potential distinctions between the funding of those ads by making contributions directly to candidates and spending money independently on ads directly advocating the election of individuals, money spent on one’s own behalf—I could go on.  Today, I’m going to focus on the most controversial (or, if you’re of that view, notorious) part of the Buckley case  That is its holding that held unconstitutional under the First Amendment, congressionally dictated limits on independent expenditures seeking to persuade people how to vote in the elections.