Supreme Court strikes down California donor disclosure requirement

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion of the court, with which the other conservatives either joined or concurred. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, along with the other liberals.

SUPREME COURT TAKES AIM AT CALIFORNIA DONOR DISCLOSURE RULE

The rule, which the challengers argued targeted donor privacy, has been the subject of heated debate for nearly a decade. It was originally imposed by the California attorney general’s office and required all nonprofit groups seeking to raise money in the state to report the names and addresses of their major donors nationwide.

The state claimed that donor information would be kept private and only viewed by authorized officials. The reason for the rule, it said, was to prevent fraud. But given California’s poor record of confidentiality in other matters, a number of charities worried that private donor information would inevitably leak to the public.

Roberts wrote in his opinion that there was a “dramatic mismatch” between what the California attorney general’s office said it wanted to accomplish with the rule and what it actually did. And most of the time, Roberts added, the disclosures required by the rule were not used in any fraud prevention efforts.

“The upshot is that California casts a dragnet for sensitive donor information from tens of thousands of charities each year, even though that information will become relevant in only a small number of cases involving filed complaints,” Roberts wrote.

Roberts also wrote that he was “unpersuaded” by California’s claims that requiring the donor disclosures would not necessarily intimidate donors. Roberts pointed to evidence that donors who have had their names leaked to the public have become subject to bomb threats, protests, stalking, and physical violence.

“Such risks are heightened in the 21st century and seem to grow with each passing year, as ‘anyone with access to a computer [can] compile a wealth of information about’ anyone else, including such sensitive details as a person’s home address or the school attended by his children,” Roberts added.

Sotomayor, on the other hand, was not convinced by these arguments. She wrote off Roberts’s concerns as “vaguely waving toward First Amendment ‘privacy concerns'” in her dissent.

In 2014, the libertarian Americans for Prosperity Foundation and the Thomas More Law Center, a Catholic legal group, sued the state, arguing that the rule violates their First Amendment right to free association by discouraging donors from giving to them. The two groups won support from nonprofit organizations all over the ideological spectrum, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A federal district court ruled in their favor, noting that in the past, the exposure of donors has led to intimidation as bad as death threats. But the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reversed that decision. In April, many of the Supreme Court’s justices appeared sympathetic to the nonprofit groups’ cause, with several making a case for donor privacy, especially if a charity supports controversial causes.

The case attracted attention for its role in deciding the future of “dark money.” Prior to arguments, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse sent Justice Amy Coney Barrett a letter asking that she recuse herself from the case. Whitehouse was joined by Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson, both of whom have been vocal critics of former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appointments.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The three argued that because an arm of Americans for Prosperity campaigned for Barrett’s confirmation, she had a conflict of interest in the case. Barrett did not recuse herself from arguments.

The Biden administration also weighed in and urged the Supreme Court to send the case back to the 9th Circuit for further consideration.