01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, May 19, 2005

Sitting near Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey in U.S. District Court on Tuesday was Jessica Sauer, a law student at Pepperdine University. She will be interning this summer for Tom Marcelle, an Albany lawyer representing Laffey in his suit to overturn a Board of Elections ruling and get back his WPRO radio show.

As court started, Judge Mary Lisi chirped to Sauer, "You're about to get an education."

Everybody got one.

Lisi saw no reason to grant Laffey an order to resume the program while the case plays out. She did not buy his argument that the board had violated his First Amendment rights when it ruled the program was an illegal campaign contribution from a corporation. Lisi asserted that any right Laffey had to do the show stemmed from an arrangement he had with WPRO, something she deemed "incidental" to free speech. "There is no absolute constitutional right to access to commercial airtime," she said.

The session affirmed that you can't predict what will happen in court. And sometimes, when it's over, you say, "Huh?"

At the outset, Marcelle called the board's action a "direct assault" on the First Amendment, government "censorship" of a citizen. But Lisi immediately barraged him with questions, and he never got traction.

Indeed, she spent much time at the hearing ruminating not on constitutional issues but on whether the board followed state law correctly. Instead of taking him off the air, she said, it should have followed another course, such as summoning him to court on criminal charges.

I wondered: If the board didn't act in kosher fashion, maybe Laffey should be free to return to WPRO until proper procedures are followed. I wanted to draw Lisi out, but she refuses to be interviewed.

Board chairman Roger Begin minimized the judge's comments about his panel's procedures -- maybe state law needs amending, he shrugged -- and said the main point was that Lisi had found Laffey's free-speech claims "bogus."

Raymond Marcaccio, the board's lawyer, praised Lisi. He said an assertion that something is protected by the First Amendment can be off the mark. "Just like if a fire department goes in and says that a church should be shut down on a Sunday morning because it may be dangerous to the people there. Of course that affects the right to association, the right to worship. But that is secondary to what the fire department is trying to do. The same thing here. The Board of Elections was there for the purpose of enforcing contribution laws."

The mayor's lawyer, Marcelle, said of Lisi, "If Steve Laffey were suing to go on the radio, she'd be right, without question. What we're talking about is something different." He said Laffey and WPRO were exercising a free-speech right and the board "terminated" it. Laffey's local lawyer, Michael Lepizzera, chimed in, "No one has the right to go to WPRO and say, 'Hey, I'm here, broadcast me.' " But he said the station had engaged Laffey to do the program.

The normally glib Laffey groped for words. He told me his head was spinning. He said, "I thought the First Amendment was really important."

I did too, but in this instance Lisi didn't. It's as if she were telling Laffey: Don't bother me.

As for law student Jessica Sauer, she said it was "interesting" to take in the debate in Lisi's courtroom, but she was "disappointed" in the outcome because she thinks Laffey's case is "very strong."

Laffey may now turn to the U.S. Court of Appeals or the state Supreme Court.

Stay tuned.

M. Charles Bakst, The Journal's political columnist, can be reached by e-mail at mbakst [at] projo.com