The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals finds Wisconsin law on issue ads violates free speech...

"... but the practical impact of the decision is blunted because the rules had already been sidelined by another lawsuit 3 1/2 years ago."

[The lawsuit began in 2010 when Wisconsin Right to Life sued] the Government Accountability Board... for seeking to regulate ads that weighed in on issues and candidates in the run-up to an election without expressly advocating for the defeat or victory of the candidates.... Around the same time, the conservative Club for Growth and the liberal One Wisconsin Now sued over the regulations in federal court in Madison. In addition, several tea party groups and other conservatives sued over the matter in state Supreme Court.

ADDED: Here's the opinion PDF. The judges are Posner, Flaum, and Sykes. Excerpt:

Like other campaign-finance systems, Wisconsin’s is labyrinthian and difficult to decipher without a background in this area of the law; in certain critical respects, it violates the constitutional limits on the government’s power to regulate independent political speech. Part of the problem is that the state’s basic campaign-finance law—Chapter 11 of the Wisconsin Statutes—has not been updated to keep pace with the evolution in Supreme Court doctrine marking the boundaries on the government’s authority to regulate election-related speech. In addition, key administrative rules do not cohere well with the statutes, introducing a patchwork of new and different terms, definitions, and burdens on independent political speakers, the intent and cumulative effect of which is to enlarge the reach of the statutory scheme. Finally, the state elections agency has given conflicting signals about its intent to enforce some aspects of the regulatory mélange.

AND: The Wisconsin Reporter discusses the effect the decision might have on the notorious John Doe investigation:

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Randa shut down the probe, asserting that the prosecutors’ application of the law was “simply wrong.”....

The prosecutors’ theory reportedly attempts to merge issue advocacy, which does not support or oppose a particular candidate, with express advocacy, which directly supports or opposes a candidate.

As Randa pointed out, there is no evidence to suggest the plaintiffs engaged in express advocacy, which comes with particular prohibitions on campaign coordination.

The appeals court in its ruling states a GAB ruling that treats issue advocacy during the 30/60-day pre-election period as “fully regulable express advocacy if it mentions a candidate, is unconstitutional.”

“Similarly, GAB § 1.91, which imposes PAClike registration, reporting, and other requirements on all organizations that make independent disbursements, is unconstitutional as applied to organizations not engaged in express advocacy as their major purpose,” the court wrote.

That is precisely where the prosecutors in the John Doe appear to hang their legal hat.