Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell filed a petition for certiorari today seeking U.S. Supreme Court review of a state-court ruling that Virginia's unsolicited bulk e-mail law violates First Amendment protections for anonymous speech. Nearly all state anti-spam laws regulate commercial speech; Virginia's law, on the other hand, regulates all bulk unsolicited e-mail. The attorney general's press release announcing the filing spends a lot of time making the point that Jeremy Jaynes is a horrible individual but not much about why the lower court erred.
The petition for certiorari doesn't defend the statute either. Instead, the petition argues that the state supreme court misapplied the U.S. Supreme Court's substantial overbreadth doctrine, improperly permitting Jaynes to assert the free speech rights of persons engaged in protected political speech, then invalidating the state law because it might have a conceivable impact on the exercise of those rights.
A like to the petition should be working here later today.
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