THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, April 20, 1995               TAG: 9504200491
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                         LENGTH: Short :   49 lines

RULING UPHOLDS RIGHT TO DISTRIBUTE ELECTION LEAFLETS ANONYMOUSLY

In a free-speech decision expected to affect laws in virtually every state, the Supreme Court Wednesday struck down an Ohio election statute that barred anonymous political campaign leaflets.

The 7-2 decision overturned a law requiring that political leaflets bear the name and address of their sponsors.

Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the majority opinion, called the Ohio law a ``blunderbuss approach'' to restricting free speech. Defenders of the law had argued that it protects campaigns and candidates from last-minute anonymous attacks.

``Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and dissent,'' Stevens wrote. ``Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority.''

The decision came too late for Margaret McIntyre, who had been arrested and fined $100 for handing out unsigned leaflets opposing a 1988 school levy in the Columbus, Ohio, suburb of Westerville. McIntyre died of ovarian cancer last May.

Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, added McIntyre's leaflet to a historical tradition dating to the Federalist Papers written during the ratification of the Constitution. John Jay, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton signed them with the pseudonym ``Publius.''

``. . . the historical evidence indicates that Founding-era Americans opposed attempts to require that anonymous authors reveal their identities on the ground that forced disclosure violated the `freedom of the press,' '' Thomas wrote.

Joining them in the majority were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and Sandra Day O'Connor.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia dissented.

Scalia said the ruling would upset laws in every other state but California and charged that the majority had discovered a ``hitherto unknown right-to-be-unknown while engaging in electoral politics.'' Just because anonymous electioneering has been used frequently does not make it a constitutional right, he said.

The decision will create a coast-to-coast constitutional mess, he said.

KEYWORDS: SUPREME COURT DECISION by CNB