Congressional Research Service: The First Amendment: Categories of Speech

To set up our look at the development of political institutions.

- Click here for it. 

Here's a relevant chunk: 

Political and Ideological Speech The Supreme Court has long considered political and ideological speech to be at the core of the First Amendment, including speech concerning “politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.” W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). Political speech can take other forms beyond the written or spoken word, such as money, e.g., Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976) (per curiam), or symbolic acts, e.g., Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989). A government regulation that implicates political or ideological speech generally receives strict scrutiny in the courts, whereby the government must show that the law is narrowly.

Links: 

- W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette
- Buckley v. Valeo
- Texas v. Johnson
- Strict Scrutiny.

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