The web has some information on the author of EMILY’s List v. FEC.  Click here for the District Court’s website’s biography of Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.  Wikipedia also has an entry.  A previous opinion (finding constitutional BCRA’s electioneering communications provisions), quoting Elihu Root, is familiar to those who follow campaign finance law.  Warning, the file is 706 pages (“The result is that broadcast advertisements paid for by corporations or labor unions, aired in close proximity to an election that clearly identify a federal candidate, and are targeted to that candidate’s electorate, need to be paid for with federal funds from a segregated account.  Congress, therefore, is not prohibiting speech by any corporation or labor union; it is merely requiring these organizations to pay for speech that ostensibly influences federal elections with segregated funds that are regulated under FECA.”)  FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life also discusses the issue (“Because WRTL’s ads are not express advocacy or its functional equivalent, and because appellants identify no interest sufficiently compelling to justify burdening WRTL’s speech, we hold that BCRA § 203 is unconstitutional as applied to WRTL’s ‘Wedding,’ ‘Loan,’ and ‘Waiting’ ads.”)