[EL] AFP

[Pildes, Rick]

A few thoughts on the AFP decision, which is a major one on how courts are to assess the constitutionality of disclosure laws.   The most important questions going forward are how this doctrinal shift will apply to disclosure requirements in the context of elections.


1.      The Court holds that laws which require disclosure of major donors to organizations inherently burden freedom of association enough that government must always have a sufficiently important interest to justify such laws.   That means a plaintiff, such as an organization, does not have to show that there are particular reasons disclosure will cause specific injury to it – for example, that its donors are likely to suffer various forms of reprisal or retaliation as a result of disclosure.

2.     The most important point that follows is that disclosure laws must always be “narrowly tailored” to achieving government’s important interests – which includes considering other alternatives to achieving that goal short of disclosure.

3.     The CA law fails mainly because the Court concludes that CA hadn’t shown that it had significant reasons to require the disclosures at issue.  As the Court read the facts, CA did not make much use of these forms as tools to investigate potential charitable fraud or other illegal actions by charities.  That makes for a major distinction between this decision and how the Court views disclosure requirements in the election context.  In the election setting, disclosure requirements already get over the first hurdle in this analysis, unlike CA’s law.  The Court has recognized several important interests that justify disclosure of donors in the election context – including the important informational interest voters have in knowing who is funding election activity.

4.     The key question will be how the second hurdle – that disclosure laws be narrowly tailored – will apply in the election context.  But given the Court’s recognition of the informational interest voters have, laws providing that information would seem to meet this narrow tailoring requirement in general.

5.     The Court has also recognized other important interests behind disclosure requirements in the election context, such as aiding in enforcement of the existing laws and reducing the risk of corruption (in the context of disclosing campaign contributions).  But given the unique and powerful informational interest the Court has long recognized in the election context, it’s not clear AFP will have significant implications for election disclosure laws – though I expect significant anxiety on that score.

6.     I believe this is the first time the Court has struck down a disclosure law as a general matter (technically, on its face) rather than as-applied, though it has entertained facial challenges to such laws before.
Will be interested to hear what others think of this assessment.


Best,
Rick

Richard H. Pildes
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law
NYU School of Law
40 Washington Square So.
NYC, NY 10014
347-886-6789
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20210701/7887a189/attachment.html>