Exactly one year after the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol, Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced his support for a bill that his office said “would outlaw attempts by candidates and elected officials to spread lies about free and fair elections when it has the likelihood to stoke violence.” That bill would make such lies a gross misdemeanor, subject to up to 364 days in jail.

Inslee’s motives are laudable. But his solution—jailing people for political speech—raises substantial First Amendment problems. The debate playing out in Washington state is a broader illustration of the fragility of the robust First Amendment protections that courts have provided to speech for the past century. Some officials and commentators across the political spectrum are increasingly willing to sacrifice core free speech protections to address the problems of the day. And this illiberal trend should concern everyone, regardless of partisan affiliation.

In the press release, Inslee’s office tried to avoid First Amendment concerns by citing a 1969 Supreme Court case, Brandenburg v. Ohio, for the assertion that the Supreme Court “has made it clear that speech can be limited where it is likely to incite lawlessness.” That is a partial and misleading representation of the court’s holding. In Brandenburg, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of an Ohio Ku Klux Klan leader, reasoning that “the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe...

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