Hustler on the hill: free speech and free porn.

• Author: Sanchez, Julian

IN A MEMO issued in late February, the sergeant at arms of the Senate, William H. Pickle, informed legislators that "the Senate Post Office has delivered, and will continue to be delivering, copies of Hustler magazine that the publisher is mailing to all Congressional offices."

The nudie mag has been arriving on legislators' desks since at least 1983; publisher Larry Flynt recently told the Salt Lake City Tribune that he began sending members of Congress his journal of "political and social satire" because he "felt that they should be informed with what's going on in the rest of the world." More than 260 lawmakers initially attempted to halt delivery under a law allowing individuals to direct the U.S. Post Office to enjoin other postal customers from sending them "sexually provocative" material. But in 1986, in United States Postal Service v. Hustler, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the First Amendment right "to petition the government for redress of grievances" made that law inapplicable to elected officials in their offices.

Capitol Hill's most recent round of interest in Flynt's raunchy...