Title: Kimball v. Hooper

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

KIMBELL_V_HOOPER.94-180; 164 Vt 80; 665 A.2d 44

[Filed 04-Aug-1995]


  NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.


                                 No. 94-180


Stephen W. Kimbell & Robert S.                    Supreme Court
Sherman, d/b/a Kimbell & Sherman,
et al.
                                                  On Appeal from
    v.                                            Washington Superior Court

Donald M. Hooper, Secretary of                    November Term, 1994
State, and Jeffrey L. Amestoy,
Attorney General

Alan W. Cheever, J.

Charles F. Storrow of Kimbell & Storrow, Montpelier, for plaintiffs-appellants

Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, and Phillip J. Cykon, Assistant
  Attorney General, Montpelier, for defendants-appellees


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson and Morse, JJ. and Peck, J. (Ret.) and
  Jenkins, Supr. J., Specially Assigned




       MORSE, J.    Plaintiffs, professional lobbyists, appeal a declaratory
  judgment of the Washington Superior Court ruling that Vermont's lobbying
  disclosure law is not so vague or overbroad as to violate Articles 13 and
  20 to Chapter I of the Vermont Constitution or the First Amendment to the
  United States Constitution.  We affirm.

       Vermont has regulated the lobbying profession since 1939.  See 1939,
  No. 240 (An Act Requiring Legislative Counsel and Agents to Register During
  Session of the General Assembly). The lobbying disclosure law under
  scrutiny today became effective in 1990.  See 1989, No. 160 (Adj. Sess.);
  see also 2 V.S.A. §§ 261-268 (the Act).  In general, the 1990 Act requires
  lobbyists to register with the Secretary of State and to report
  expenditures related to their efforts to influence legislation.  Nothing in
  the Act as enacted or amended prohibits lobbying or attempts to censor
  particular messages or points of view.

 

       Plaintiffs have not been charged with a violation of the Act, nor have
  they expressed their intention to violate its provisions; rather, they
  facially challenge the 1993 amended definitions of the terms "Expenditure"
  and "Lobbying" found in 2 V.S.A. § 261 (5) and (9).(FN1)  These amendments
  require lobbyists to report a broader spectrum of lobbying efforts, such as
  research and other preparatory work and indirect contacts to influence
  legislators.  Because plaintiffs 

 

  facially challenge the Act, we have no factual context in which to
  evaluate its constitutionality. Plaintiffs also challenge the addition of §
  266(3), which, among other things, prohibits lobbyists from contributing to
  political campaigns of members of the General Assembly while the
  legislature is in session.(FN2)
 
                                      I.

       Without doubt, lobbying implicates First Amendment guarantees of
  petition, expression, and assembly, as well as similar rights found in the
  Vermont Constitution.(FN3)  See United States v. Harriss,