Ninth Circuit Holds Montana Election Contribution Disclosure Requirements Unconstitutional as Applied to De Minimis Contributions — Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church of East Helena, Inc. v. Unsworth
556 F.3d 1021 (9th Cir. 2009)
As political campaigns have become more expensive and sophisticated, Congress has increasingly regulated them, yet the Supreme Court has declared many aspects of that regulation unconstitutional. Recently, in Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church of East Helena, Inc. v. Unsworth, the Ninth Circuit continued this deregulatory trend byholding that Montana’s election contribution disclosure requirementswere unconstitutional as applied to de minimis campaign expenditures. Though the bureaucratic disclosure requirements of the regulation at issue may chill speech, an effect that the court correctly recognized, another feature of the regulation may chill speech even more: its third-party enforcement mechanism. Because the regulation allows third parties to bring complaints of campaign rulebreaking, enforcement against minor parties may spring from questionable motives, result in disproportionate burdens, and ultimately militate against the public interest. Legislatures crafting campaign law and judges applying it should be cognizant of these difficulties.
