How sad to read this morning of the reversal of course by the American Civil Liberties Union in respect of limits on campaign speech. It happened earlier this month, according to an article today in the Wall Street Journal. These columns were the first to report that the famed civil liberties organization was wrestling with a faction of its board that was unhappy with the outcome of the case of Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission, in which the United States Supreme Court removed certain prohibitions on campaign spending by corporations, labor unions, and citizen’s organizations. One of the things that made the matter so newsworthy is that the Civil Liberties Union had long stood at the forefront of the fight for free speech against those who would restrict it on the notion that money was corrupting our democratic process by enabling too much speech too close to voting day.

Now the reversal of course by the ACLU has been done, according to an op-ed piece in the Journal by the great First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams. The article was co-authored by a former executive director of the Union, Ira Glasser, and by a professor at Brooklyn Law School, Joel Gora, who is counsel to ACLU on campaign finance cases. They report that the national board of the ACLU, “[o]ver the objections of some key senior staff and by a very narrow vote,” rejected its longstanding opposition to limits on campaign spending. It will, they report, “now accept ‘reasonable’ government limitations on contributions to candidates.” They assert that the Union’s about-face “will inevitably benefit those who are already elected and disadvantage challengers.”

Messrs. Abrams et al underscore the drama of the ACLU’s defection by sketching its previous policy: “Expenditures by candidates (including of their own funds), contributions, advertising by political parties, labor unions, nonprofit organizations and even business corporations were all viewed by the ACLU as embodying fundamental constitutional rights. As a result, its policy was clear and concise: ‘Limitations on contributions or expenditures made by individuals or organizations for the purpose of advocating causes or candidates in the public forum impinge directly on freedom of speech and association. Their implementation poses serious dangers to the First Amendment. They should be opposed in candidate as well as referenda elections.’”

Reversing course, the ACLU, according to Messrs. Abrams, Glasser, and Gora, “also endorsed government limits on spending by candidates who accept public financing.” The authors say the restrictions it now supports “will empower incumbents by forcing challengers to agree to limit their campaigns in order to get public funding.” They said that is the reason Barack Obama “rejected such limits for his presidential campaign” and note that he and the ACLU now “will support imposing them on others.” The authors put it this way: “In effect, under the ACLU’s new policy, insurgent candidates will be forced to waive their right to more speech as a condition of accepting public financing, which will never be set at levels sufficient to generate a viable challenge.”

Mr. Abrams and his co-authors note that the ACLU did not approve what they call “direct government limits on expenditures by candidates, individuals and independent groups like unions and corporations.” The write: “Having supported the challenge by Citizens United to criminal bans on corporate and union expenditures — in brave opposition to liberal orthodoxy — the ACLU did not abandon that position, which has now been adopted by the Supreme Court.” And they are harsh: “Nonetheless, we’ve come to this: The premier First Amendment organization in America now favors limitations on the First Amendment in the area in which all agree it must have its most powerful application — political speech during election campaigns.” They conclude that the “rhetoric of egalitarianism has won a victory over freedom of speech.”

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The Union’s about-face is characterized by Messrs. Abrams, Glasser, and Gora as “a self-inflicted wound from which the ACLU will not soon recover.” No doubt they are right. By our lights it exposes the organization to a charge that it is, at bottom, not an institution of principle but a partisan political organization. It did not reverse its course and adopt a pro-incumbent policy when, say, the George W. Bush and the Republicans held the White House and the Congress. It reversed course and adopted its pro-incumbent policies when the Democrats held the incumbency. So in addition to everything else, the ACLU, which once defended, as a matter of high principle, the rights of Nazis and communists and the least popular fringe elements, has swung over to the Democratic majority in its years of triumph. Of course, by the looks of things, the Democrats may not hold onto that majority forever. This holds the hope that some day we may yet have a political climate in which the national board of the ACLU again will emerge on the side of the underdog.