WASHINGTON D.C. – Campaign Legal Center (CLC), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Common Cause and League of Women Voters of California (LWV) submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Becerra.     

The brief urges the Court to uphold California’s law that requires charitable groups active in the state to file nonpublic tax reports – Schedule Bs – with the state Attorney General (AG) listing their largest donors.

The state has asserted that the law requiring nonpublic reports is necessary to effectively enforce its tax and nonprofit laws and prevent charitable fraud. In California, the Schedule B form is kept confidential and used only for governmental oversight purposes.

But the petitioners Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) and the Thomas More Law Center refused to submit their Schedule B donor reports to the AG’s office and brought this lawsuit against the California AG, claiming that the confidential submission of the Schedule B will violate their First Amendment rights by exposing the handful of major donors that appear on each group’s Schedule B form—many of whom contribute above a million dollars annually—to harassment and threats.

To support their claims, AFPF and the Law Center likened themselves and the potential harassment faced by their major donors to that of NAACP members during the civil rights movement in Alabama. The petitioners are making this bold claim to urge the Court to either strike down California’s law as unconstitutional on its face or grant both groups an exemption from the reporting requirement—even though the state requirement is functionally identical to their nonpublic reporting obligations under federal tax laws, which the petitioners are not challenging.

In positioning their case at the Supreme Court, the petitioners explicitly disavow any intent to challenge public and electoral transparency laws. Instead, they are asking the Court to ratchet up the standard of review applied in disclosure cases only when they involve nonpublic financial disclosures to government regulators—but a broad ruling accepting that theory could make it harder to defend all disclosure laws in court.

Petitioners are also claiming the unique exemption from disclosure laws that the Supreme Court created in Buckley v. Valeo to protect historically marginalized groups facing severe persecution and harassment. Unlike the disclosure law in Buckley, however, California’s law requires confidential reporting, so there is no reasonable chance that the petitioners’ major donors will be exposed to any public hostility; by conflating their circumstances with those of marginalized groups, the petitioners threaten to expand the disclosure exemption, potentially putting other transparency measures at risk in the future, including disclosure of money spent on elections.

“This case has nothing to do with elections or any claimed interests in public transparency,” stated Paul Smith, vice president at CLC. “A case about the constitutionality of California’s confidential tax reporting law should not be permitted to dilute the Court’s well-established precedents endorsing voters’ right to know who is spending money to influence our elections and our government. This case should not be used as a vehicle to expand exemptions from transparency in election spending to any deep-pocketed, politically active group that attracts public criticism for messages to evade disclosure.”

“Shielding the rich donors who give enormous sums to organizations like Americans for Prosperity Foundation and Thomas Moore Law Center removes any semblance of accountability,” said Stuart McPhail, senior litigation counsel at CREW. “When it comes to understanding how organizations like these operate, especially those groups with tremendous public influence, it's imperative their financial records are accessible and transparent. The First Amendment not only permits such transparency but is advanced when transparency leads to speech used to hold the powerful to account.” 

“This suit is truly a solution in search of a problem that does not in fact exist,” said Beth A. Rotman, money in politics & ethics program director at Common Cause. “The disclosure requirement being challenged is disclosure solely to the state of California, and their filings are exempted from FOIA requests, so the public will never see their lists of donors.”

“The League joined this case to stand against the spreading influence of dark money in politics,” said Stephanie Doute, executive director of the League of Women Voters of California. “Financial disclosure rules are essential to ensure accountability for political influence, and this case could have dangerous implications for campaign finance transparency. The wealthiest political donors should not be able to influence our politics in secret. This case is just another example of wealthy special interests trying to chip away at transparency in politics.” 

Read the full brief

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Washington, D.C. – Today, Campaign Legal Center Action (CLCA) and Common Cause Georgia filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that during the lead up to the Georgia Senate runoff elections, the Georgia Republican Party illegally coordinated with True the Vote.

In December  2020, True the Vote, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, stated that it had received a request from the Georgia Republican Party for assistance with the 2021 Senate runoff election, and announced through a press release a partnership with the party to provide services in connection with the election. In the press release Georgia Republican Party Chairman, David Shafer said, “We are grateful for the help of the True the Vote team in the fight for election integrity,” and “The resources of True the Vote will help us organize and implement the most comprehensive ballot security initiative in Georgia history.”

The services True the Vote provided included a voter hotline, ballot-curing support, signature verification training and absentee ballot drop box monitoring. Federal law prohibits a corporation like True the Vote from coordinating with a political party on any expenditures made, “in connection with an election.”

“True the Vote stated publicly that it was coordinating its election activities with the Georgia Republican Party, and as a result, both violated federal campaign finance law,” said Brendan Fischer, CLCA director of federal reform. “It doesn’t matter if True the Vote expressly urged voters to elect Republicans, the relevant legal question is whether True the Vote spent money ‘in connection with an election’ and coordinated that spending with the Georgia Republican Party. The evidence shows that it did.”   

Campaign finance law treats coordinated expenditures as in-kind contributions. A corporation like True the Vote is prohibited from contributing to a party committee. By True the Vote coordinating its spending with the Georgia Republican Party, it illegally made in-kind contributions to the party, and the party illegally accepted those contributions.

“The pattern was clear, in the voting challenges,” said Common Cause Executive Director Aunna Dennis. “In Floyd County, the GOP vice chairman ‘filled out the form letter provided by True The Vote’ to challenge voters. In Cobb County, the voter challenges were filed by the county GOP chair. The Muscogee County voter challenges were filed ‘on behalf of’ the county GOP. In Gwinnett County, the challenges were made by the Assistant Secretary of the state GOP. This was a coordinated campaign to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Georgians before the January Senate runoffs.”

Corporations are not supposed to act as an arm of a campaign or political party, and since coordinated spending is just as valuable to a party as direct contributions, coordination between outside spenders and a political party is illegal. The FEC, which is the only government agency whose sole responsibility is overseeing the integrity of our political campaigns, must investigate and hold all parties accountable for their blatant disregard for campaign finance laws.

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ATLANTA, GA – Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed an omnibus bill into law Thursday night that will make sweeping changes to the state’s election procedures, making it significantly harder to vote following record turnout in the 2020 elections. Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is among the co-counsel representing FairFight Action in FairFight Action v. Raffensperger, a broad case addressing many existing deficiencies in Georgia’s electoral system on behalf of Georgia voters. CLC will continue to fight on behalf of Georgia voters, even as new burdens have been imposed.

“Georgia’s voter suppression law is democracy in reverse,” said Caleb Jackson, legal counsel, voting rights at Campaign Legal Center (CLC). “In our country, voters pick their politicians. The brazen power grab on display in Georgia is an attempt by politicians to cherry-pick their voters, making it more difficult for communities of color to exercise their freedom to vote. Georgia’s legislative push is part of a nationwide backlash responding to the multi-racial coalition that voted in record numbers in 2020. This anti-voter trend should alarm the entire nation at a time when the federal court system has chipped away at legal protections for voters that have historically faced discrimination at the ballot box.”

The law, SB 202, would allow a state takeover of county election boards and permit partisan poll watchers to launch unlimited challenges to voter eligibility. It will also restrict access to ballot drop boxes and make it a crime for volunteers to pass out food and water to voters waiting in line at voting centers. Augusta, Georgia disability rights advocate Gaylon Tootle recently described the attitude behind this provision as “a mean-spirited, Southern plantation style mentality.”

SB 202 would also allow the state to relocate polling places just 60 days before an election and toss out the ballots of confused voters who show up to the wrong polling place as a result.

At Campaign Legal Center, we are advancing democracy through law. Learn more about our work.