Is the mandate a violation of the First Amendment?

[elleng]

35. And they are.

'The Court has been particularly protective of political speech (and less protective of other kinds of speech, such as commercial speech). In several different ways, individuals have greater leeway in speaking about politics than they do about other subjects. For example, the First Amendment does not give individuals the right to lie about other people. If someone lies about you in writing (libel) or in speech (slander), you can sue them and collect monetary damages from them for defaming your character. However, if you were a public official, you would have to meet a higher legal standard to collect your money. In a landmark Supreme Court case, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, a Montgomery, Alabama city commissioner sued the New York Times for running an ad that contained false information about him. While an Alabama court ruled in his favor, the Supreme Court overruled the lower court's decision declaring that:

The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with "actual malice" - that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.
The Court has also provided broad protection for things that are said, written or broadcast during the course of a political campaign. The Court has even upheld the right of candidates to spend as much of their own money as they choose. In 1974, the Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act, part of which set limits on the total amount candidates for federal elective office could spend on their campaigns. In response to challenges brought by several candidates in Buckley v. Valeo, the Court declared the limits on spending a violation of the candidates' First Amendment rights. In its decision, a unanimous Court observed:

In the free society ordained by our constitution, it is not the government, but the people--individually as citizens and candidates and collectively as associations and political committees--who must retain control over the quantity and range of debate on public issues in a political campaign.
However, while the Court rejected overall spending limits for candidates and their campaigns, it let stand limits on the amount that individuals can give to candidates."

http://www.thisnation.com/textbook/billofrights-speech.html

And things moved on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission