IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-50582

CATHOLIC LEADERSHIP COALITION OF TEXAS, doing business as Texas 

Leadership Coalition; TEXAS LEADERSHIP COALITION-INSTITUTE FOR 

PUBLIC ADVOCACY; FRIENDS OF SAFA TEXAS; TEXAS FREEDOM PAC,

Plaintiffs-Appellants

v.

DAVID A. REISMAN, In his official capacity as Executive Director of the Texas 

Ethics Commission; HUGH C. AKIN, In his official capacity as a member of 

the Texas Ethics Commission; TOM HARRISON, In his official capacity as a 

member of the Texas Ethics Commission; JIM CLANCY, In his official capacity 

as a member of the Texas Ethics Commission; PAUL W. HOBBY, In his official 

capacity as a member of the Texas Ethics Commission; BOB LONG, In his 

official capacity as a member of the Texas Ethics Commission; PAULA M.

MENDOZA, In her official capacity as a member of the Texas Ethics 

Commission; TOM RAMSAY, In his official capacity as a member of the Texas 

Ethics Commission; CHASE UNTERMEYER, In his official capacity as a 

member of the Texas Ethics Commission; SUSAN REED, In her official 

capacity as District Attorney for Bexar County, Texas,

Defendants-Appellees 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Texas

Before BARKSDALE, CLEMENT, and OWEN, Circuit Judges.

EDITH BROWN CLEMENT, Circuit Judge:*

* Judge Barksdale concurs in this opinion with the exception of Section III.B.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

August 12, 2014

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

 

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To form a “general-purpose committee”—a type of political action 

committee devoted to promoting a particular point of view—in Texas, a group 

of persons must appoint a committee treasurer and register with the Texas 

Election Commission. The nascent general-purpose committee must then 

collect contributions from ten contributors, and wait sixty days before 

exceeding $500 in contributions and expenditures. And even after collecting 

contributions from ten donors and waiting sixty days, the political committee 

is forever barred from accepting corporate contributions unless the committee 

solely engages in independent expenditures. 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, three general-purpose political committees and 

one nonprofit corporation, raise facial and as-applied First Amendment 

challenges1 to the treasurer-appointment requirement, the ten-contributor 

requirement, and the 60-day, 500-dollar contribution and expenditure limit. 

One of the general-purpose committees and the nonprofit corporation also 

bring a First Amendment challenge to the corporate contribution ban asapplied to a proposed contribution of an email contact list from the nonprofit 

corporation to the general-purpose committee. The general-purpose committee 

avers that the email contact list will only be used in support of independent 

expenditures.

The district court, after determining that the case was not moot, upheld 

the constitutionality of all of the challenged provisions of the Texas Election 

Code on cross-motions for summary judgment. We now hold that the

treasurer-appointment requirement and the corporate contribution ban are 

constitutional. However, we conclude that the 60-day, 500-dollar contribution 

and expenditure limit as well as the ten-contributor requirement are facially 

1 The First Amendment is incorporated against the states via the Due Process Clause 

of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., Va. State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Va. Citizens Consumer 

Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 749 n.1 (1976).

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unconstitutional under the First Amendment. We therefore AFFIRM IN 

PART; REVERSE and RENDER IN PART; and REMAND for further 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

A.

Because this appeal concerns the intersection of various limitations on 

the behavior of, and permissible donations to, political committees in Texas, 

we first review the relevant definitions and regulations in the Texas Election 

Code. 

1.

Under Texas law, a political committee is “a group of persons that has as 

a principal purpose accepting political contributions or making political 

expenditures.” Tex. Elec. Code § 251.001(12).2 The Election Code further 

distinguishes between two different types of committees: general-purpose 

committees and specific-purpose committees. A general-purpose committee is 

a political committee that has “among its principal purposes”:

(A) supporting or opposing:

(i) two or more candidates who are unidentified or are 

seeking offices that are unknown; or 

(ii) one or more measures that are unidentified; or

(B) assisting two or more officeholders who are unidentified.

Tex. Elec. Code § 251.001(14). A political committee that is dedicated to 

supporting candidates of a particular point of view (e.g., pro-life or pro-choice 

candidates) is a general-purpose committee because the committee’s fidelity 

lies with the committee’s particular perspective rather than any specific 

2 See also Tex. Ethics Comm’n, Ethics Advisory Op. No. 242 (1995) (discussing 

whether a nonprofit constitutes a political committee).

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candidates.3 In such circumstances, the candidates supported by the 

committee are formally considered to be “unidentified” because candidates can 

gain or lose the committee’s support depending on their policy positions.4

Finally, for the purpose of determining general-purpose committee status, all 

that matters is that some of the committee’s activities qualify as the activities 

of a general-purpose committee.5

Texas law contrasts general-purpose committees with specific-purpose 

committees. Specific-purpose committees are defined in opposition to a 

general-purpose committee—they are those committees that do “not have 

among its principal purposes those of a general-purpose committee,” but rather 

have as a “primary purpose”:

(A) supporting or opposing one or more: 

(i) candidates, all of whom are identified and are seeking 

offices that are known; or 

(ii) measures, all of which are identified;

(B) assisting one or more officeholders, all of whom are 

identified; or

(C) supporting or opposing only one candidate who is 

unidentified or who is seeking an office that is unknown. 

Tex. Elec. Code § 251.001(13). Committees supporting or opposing a particular 

candidate (e.g., Friends of Jefferson Smith, Opponents of Joseph Paine) named 

in the committee’s disclosures to the Texas Ethics Commissions constitute 

specific-purpose committees.6

3 See generally Tex. Ethics Comm’n, Campaign Finance Guide for Political 

Committees 2 (Nov. 2012 Rev.).

4 See id.

5 See id. (“If a political committee engages in any of the activities described in this 

section, it is a general-purpose committee, regardless of what else the committee does.”); see 

also id. (“A general-purpose committee devoted to a particular point of view does not become 

a specific-purpose committee because it lends support to a particular candidate in an 

election.”).

6 Specific-purpose committees may support multiple candidates as long as the 

committee’s support of the candidates is properly disclosed.

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Texas also has two broad categories of political spending: contributions 

and expenditures. A contribution is “a direct or indirect transfer of money, 

goods, services, or any other thing of value and includes an agreement made 

or other obligation incurred, whether legally enforceable or not, to make a 

transfer.” Id. § 251.001(2). A “political contribution” includes both campaign 

contributions—contributions that are “offered or given with the intent that it 

be used in connection with a campaign for elective office or on a measure,” 

regardless of when the contribution is made, id. § 251.001(3)—and officeholder 

contributions—contributions that are “offered or given with the intent that it 

be used to defray expenses that: (A) are incurred by the officeholder in 

performing a duty or engaging in an activity in connection with the office; and 

(B) are not reimbursable with public money.” Id. § 251.001(4); see also id. § 

251.001(5) (defining political contribution). Donations to either a candidate or 

a political committee (whether general-purpose or specific-purpose) count as 

contributions. See id. § 251.001(3)-(4).

Meanwhile, an expenditure is “a payment of money or any other thing of 

value and includes an agreement made or other obligation incurred, whether 

legally enforceable or not, to make a payment.” Id. § 251.001(6).7 And, as with 

the definition of “political contribution,” a “political expenditure” includes both 

“officeholder” expenditures and “campaign” expenditures. Id. § 251.001(10). 

• An officeholder expenditure is an “expenditure made by any person to 

defray expenses that: (A) are incurred by an officeholder in 

performing a duty or engaging in an activity in connection with the 

office; and (B) are not reimbursable with public money.” Id. § 

251.001(9). 

7 It is important not to conceive of expenditures and contributions in opposition to 

each other. Rather, contributions are best thought of as a subset of expenditures: all 

contributions are expenditures, but not all expenditures are contributions. 

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• A “campaign expenditure” is “an expenditure made by any person in 

connection with a campaign for an elective office or on a measure,” 

regardless of when it was made. Id. § 251.001(7). 

In addition, Texas further denotes what will be an important subset of 

campaign expenditures: “direct campaign expenditures.” Under Texas law, a 

“direct campaign expenditure” is “a campaign expenditure that does not 

constitute a campaign contribution by the person making the expenditure.” Id. 

§ 251.001(8). Thus only expenditures made without the prior consent or 

approval of a candidate for office constitute “direct campaign expenditures” 

(otherwise, the expenditure would also count as a political contribution). 

Accordingly, the Texas Supreme Court has explained that “direct campaign 

expenditures” constitute the equivalent of “independent expenditures” under 

federal campaign finance law. See Osterberg v. Peca, 12 S.W.3d 31, 36 n.2 (Tex. 

2000). This opinion will refer to direct campaign expenditures as independent 

expenditures in order to avoid confusion. 

2.

The Texas Election Code regulates the formation of general-purpose 

committees. Chief among the provisions governing the formation of generalpurpose committees is Texas Election Code § 253.037(a). Section 253.037(a) 

provides that:

A general-purpose committee may not knowingly make or 

authorize a political contribution or political expenditure unless the 

committee has:

(1) filed its campaign treasurer appointment not 

later than the 60th day before the date the contribution 

or expenditure is made; and

(2) accepted political contributions from at least 10 

persons.

In addition to § 253.037(a), Texas Election Code § 253.031(b) provides that:

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A political committee may not knowingly accept political 

contributions totaling more than $500 or make or authorize 

political expenditures totaling more than $500 at a time when a 

campaign treasurer appointment for the committee is not in effect.

The two provisions stand uncomfortably together. Based on the plain text of §

253.037(a) a political committee may engage in no expenditures until a 

committee treasurer has been appointed and sixty days have passed. By 

contrast, the plain text of § 253.031(b) permits a political committee to engage 

in $500 of expenditures before the appointment of a campaign treasurer. 

The Texas Ethics Commission resolved the tension between the two 

provisions in a 1993 ethics opinion. The Commission reads the two provisions 

together to prohibit a general-purpose committee from making or authorizing 

“political expenditures totaling more than $500 unless the committee has (1) 

filed its campaign treasurer appointment no later than the 60th day before the 

date the expenditure is made that causes the total expenditure to exceed $500, 

and (2) accepted political contributions from at least 10 persons.” Tex. Ethics 

Comm’n, Ethics Advisory Op. No. 161 (1993). Accordingly, at present under 

Texas law, there are three prerequisites that a general-purpose committee 

must meet before it can fully engage in the political activity otherwise 

permitted by law:

• Appoint a committee treasurer (the “treasurer appointment 

requirement”). The treasurer plays a central role in ensuring 

compliance with Texas’s disclosure requirements. 

• Engage in less than an aggregate $500 of political expenditures and

political contributions for a 60-day window after the treasurer is 

appointed (the “60-day, 500-dollar limit”).8 The 60-day, 500-dollar 

8 This limit also applies to expenses for political fundraising. As the Texas Ethics 

Commission explained, “[a]ny expenditures related to political fundraising, including 

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limit does not apply to a general-purpose committee affiliated with a 

federal multicandidate political committee registered with the 

Federal Elections Commission. See Tex. Elec. Code § 253.037(c). 

• Receive donations from ten contributors (the “ten-contributor 

requirement”).

A violation of these requirements is a Class A misdemeanor under Texas law. 

See id. §§ 253.031(f), .037(d).

Texas claims that these restrictions are modeled on the prerequisites for 

obtaining federal multicandidate political committee status. In order to be 

classified as a multicandidate political committee under federal law, a political 

committee must (1) have been registered as a political committee with the FEC 

for six months,9 (2) received contributions from fifty persons, and (3) made 

contributions to at least five candidates for federal office. See 2 U.S.C. § 

441a(a)(4); 11 C.F.R. § 100.5(e)(3). Once a committee obtains federal 

multicandidate committee status, the committee is rewarded with higher base 

contribution limits to candidates, parties, and political committees. See 2 

U.S.C. § 441a(a)(2).

There are, however, a couple of relevant differences between federal 

multicandidate committees and general-purpose committees in Texas. For 

example, whereas committees waiting to obtain federal multicandidate 

committee status are permitted to engage in unlimited independent 

expenditures,10 Texas limits general-purpose committees to only $500 of 

independent expenditures. See Tex. Ethics Comm’n, Ethics Advisory Op. No. 

expenditures to hire a person to generate political contributions for the committee, are 

political expenditures and are thus subject to the waiting period.” Tex. Ethics Comm’n, Ethics 

Advisory Op. No. 177 (1993). 

9 See 2 U.S.C. § 433.

10 See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 51 (1976); Cal. Med. Ass’n v. FEC, 641 F.2d 619, 

624 (9th Cir. 1980) (en banc) (describing effect of Buckley).

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161 (1993). Further, whereas federal political committees that do not qualify 

as a multicandidate committee are still permitted to engage in contributions 

provided that they comply with the base per-candidate, per-party, and percommittee contribution limits applicable to individual contributors,11 Texas 

limits newly-formed general-purpose committees to an aggregate $500 in 

political contributions. 

Despite the restrictive limits on general-purpose committees set out by 

Texas Election Code § 253.037(a), the committee may generally engage in 

unlimited expenditures and contributions once it has complied.12 And once a 

general-purpose committee has complied with § 253.037(a), Texas law also 

grants that general-purpose committee certain advantages over specificpurpose committees. Unlike specific-purpose committees, general-purpose 

committees are not required to identify the specific candidates or measures

that the committee supports or opposes. See Tex. Elec. Code § 251.001(14). 

And, unlike specific-purpose committees, which are limited in the 

contributions they can receive during legislative sessions and judicial elections 

in some circumstances, general-purpose committees may continue to receive 

contributions. See id. §§ 253.034(a), .153(a). Further, general-purpose and 

specific-purpose committees have different disclosure obligations in the nine 

days before an election: general-purpose committees have greater reporting 

obligations related to independent expenditures than specific-purpose 

committees, but specific-purpose committees must report a greater number of 

received contributions. Compare id. § 254.038 (specific-purpose committees), 

with id. § 254.039 (general-purpose committees). 

11 See McCutcheon v. FEC, 134 S. Ct. 1434, 1442 n.3 (2014) (plurality opinion). 

12 Texas subjects general-purpose committees to spending limits in judicial elections. 

See Tex. Elec. Code § 253.160. 

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3.

 Also at issue are Texas’s restrictions on corporate contributions to 

political committees. Under Texas law, “[a] corporation or labor organization 

may not make a political contribution that is not authorized by this 

subchapter.” Tex. Elec. Code § 253.094(a). Given Texas’s broad definition of

what constitutes a political contribution, corporations are generally prohibited 

from transferring money (or any other thing of value) directly to a candidate 

or a political committee in connection with a campaign for elective office. 

Despite the general bar on corporate political contributions, corporations 

do retain the ability to participate in Texas politics. After Citizens United v. 

FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), the Texas Legislature amended the Texas Election 

Code to permit corporations to engage in unlimited independent expenditures 

directly from corporate funds. See Acts 2011, 82nd Leg. R.S., ch. 1009. 

Further, our decision in Texans for Free Enterprise v. Texas Ethics Commission

approved of corporate contributions to independent-expenditure-only 

committees. See 732 F.3d 535, 537-38 (5th Cir. 2013). 

B.

1.

Plaintiffs-Appellants are various entities seeking to influence Texas 

politics. 

Catholic Leadership Coalition of Texas, primarily known as the Texas 

Leadership Coalition (“TLC”), is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation whose 

“mission primarily is to evangelize and to educate the Catholic community with 

regards to faith and . . . the teaching[s] of the church.” TLC seeks to “develop 

resources and opportunities to inform Catholics about the moral precepts of 

the Church pertaining to their responsibilities as Catholic voters.” After the 

May 2012 Texas primary elections, TLC believed it needed to move beyond the 

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education realm and into direct candidate advocacy. On the advice of election 

lawyers, TLC decided to form a general-purpose committee to engage in direct 

advocacy.

TLC named the new independent entity the Texas Leadership CoalitionInstitute for Public Advocacy (“TLC-IPA”). Plaintiff TLC-IPA registered with 

the Texas Ethics Commission on June 7, 2012. Therefore, under Texas law, 

TLC-IPA was required to comply with the 60-day, 500-dollar limit until August 

6, 2012. Compliance with the 60-day, 500-dollar limit greatly hindered TLCIPA’s participation in a July 2012 run-off election. Though during the July 

2012 run-off election TLC-IPA sought only to make independent expenditures, 

TLC-IPA has since made a few direct contributions to candidates, and may do 

so again in the future. Accordingly, TLC-IPA is not an independentexpenditure-only committee.

TLC wishes to make an in-kind contribution of its email list to TLC-IPA. 

TLC-IPA wishes to accept the donation so that it can use TLC’s email list in 

support of its independent expenditures. However, TLC is barred by doing so 

by Texas’s ban on corporate contributions to committees because TLC-IPA is 

not an independent-expenditure-only entity. See Tex. Elec. Code § 253.094(a); 

see also Texans for Free Enter., 732 F.3d at 537-38 (holding that Texas cannot 

ban corporate contributions to independent-expenditure-only committees).

Plaintiff Friends of SAFA13 Texas (“FOFSA”) is also a general-purpose 

committee. FOFSA was formed to fund both independent expenditures and 

contributions to nonfederal candidates. FOFSA registered with the Texas 

Ethics Commission on July 19, 2012, and was limited in the political activities 

it could perform until the 60-day waiting period expired on September 17, 

13 SAFA stands for the San Antonio Family Association. SAFA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit 

organization. 

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2012. Those requirements precluded FOFSA from engaging in the campaign 

activities that it wished to, including fully participating in the July 2012 runoff election, as well as opposing the legislative efforts and reelection campaign 

of then-Mayor Julian Castro.

The final general-purpose committee plaintiff, Texas Freedom, 

registered with the Texas Ethics Commission on June 29, 2012. Texas 

Freedom wished to contribute campaign services such as phone banking and 

blockwalking activities to “Hispanic candidates who adhere to core 

conservative values.” Texas Freedom alleges the 60-day, 500-dollar limit 

hindered it in its fundraising and organizational efforts, thereby affecting its 

ability to fully participate in the 2012 elections. 

2.

Plaintiffs-Appellants Texas Leadership Coalition (the 501(c)(4)) and 

Texas Leadership Coalition-Institute for Public Advocacy (the general-purpose 

committee) filed suit in the Western District of Texas on June 28, 2012. They 

sought a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of Section 

253.037(a)’s 60-day, 500-dollar limit, Section 253.037(a)’s ten-contributor 

requirement, and Section 253.094(a)’s ban on corporate contributions to 

committees as applied to the in-kind donation of an email contact list from TLC 

to TLC-IPA. Defendants-Appellees are the members of the Texas Ethics 

Commission, and Susan Reed, the District Attorney of Bexar County. All are 

sued in their official capacities, and will collectively be referred to as “Texas.” 

The district court denied the preliminary injunction request, finding that 

even though it could not gauge Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success or the possibility 

of irreparable harm given the last-minute nature of the preliminary injunction 

request, the balance of hardships and the public interest strongly supported 

denying an injunction to avoid creating chaos in the Texas campaign finance 

system so close to an election. Plaintiffs appealed, and a motions panel of this 

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court affirmed. The motions panel noted that “[b]ased on the limited record 

before us, we are unpersuaded that there is a likelihood of success on the merits 

of Appellants’ First Amendment challenge to the sixty-day waiting period.” 

Catholic Leadership Coal. of Tex. v. Reisman, 473 F. App’x 402, 403 (5th Cir. 

2012). The panel therefore concluded that “the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in denying Appellants’ motion for preliminary injunction.” Id.

After the denial of the preliminary injunction, Plaintiffs twice amended 

the complaint to add Friends of SAFA Texas and Texas Freedom as plaintiffs. 

The parties cross-moved for summary judgment at the conclusion of discovery. 

The district court granted summary judgment for Texas. 

The district court’s summary judgment order began by addressing 

mootness. Texas argued that Plaintiffs’ challenges to the treasurerappointment requirement, the ten-contributor requirement, and the 60-day, 

500-dollar limit were moot after the general-purpose committees had 

registered with the Ethics Commission, amassed ten contributors, and sixty 

days had passed. The court, however, determined that Plaintiffs’ challenges 

fit within the “disputes capable of repetition yet evading review” exception to 

mootness. The court found that full litigation of the dispute would be 

impractical during the 60-day/ten-contributor waiting period, and further held 

that the Plaintiffs did not have to prove that they would suffer the same injury 

again because this was an election law dispute. Finally, the court noted that 

“policy considerations counsel in favor of resolving this case rather than 

dismissing it,” because starting the case over again with a different 

organization would be wasteful and “would deprive the numerous other 

political committees across the state of an opportunity for clarity in the 

challenged provisions of the Texas Election Code.” 

The district court then turned to the merits of the dispute. The court 

first rejected Plaintiffs’ prior restraint arguments. The court distinguished 

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Texas’s campaign-finance rules from unconstitutional prior restraints on the 

grounds that Texas did not require committees “to seek a license or permit, nor 

must such committees be ‘approved’ by any authority figure.” Texas’s rules, 

explained the court, were grounded in preventing circumvention of Texas’s 

disclosure filing requirements—not licensing speech.

Next came Plaintiffs’ challenges under Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 

(1976), to the 60-day, 500-dollar limit and the ten-contributor requirement. 

The district court characterized the provisions as measures designed to 

prevent circumvention of Texas’s disclosure requirements, and accordingly 

chose to apply the level of scrutiny applicable to disclosure regulations when 

evaluating the challenged provisions’ constitutionality. In doing so, the district 

court declined to apply the even-more-heightened levels of scrutiny applicable 

to contribution and expenditure limits. 

The court determined that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit and the tencontributor requirement withstood constitutional scrutiny. With respect to the 

60-day, 500-dollar limit, the court emphasized the extensive alternative 

methods of engaging in political speech in Texas. Therefore the court 

characterized the 60-day window as a minor burden—particularly given that 

by timely registering with the Texas Elections Commission, a general-purpose 

committee could determine when the 60-day window occurred. The court 

further found the minor burden imposed was well-justified as an 

anticircumvention measure that prevented late-forming political committees 

from being able to avoid Texas’s disclosure requirements. With respect to the 

ten-contributor requirement, the district court determined the requirement 

imposed only a minor hurdle and furthered a sufficiently important state 

interest because it “ensures the committee is actually a committee and not 

merely an individual seeking to disguise his or her personal contributions.” 

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After dispatching the Plaintiffs’ Buckley challenges to the 60-day, 500-

dollar limit and the ten-contributor requirement, the district court turned to 

the Plaintiffs’ argument that the ten-contributor requirement 

unconstitutionally forced association because it required members wanting to 

form a general-purpose committee to associate with ten other individuals 

before speaking. To determine the constitutionality of the ten-contributor 

requirement, the district court examined whether Texas “demonstrate[d] a 

sufficiently important interest and employ[ed] means closely drawn to avoid 

unnecessary abridgment of associational freedoms.” The court concluded 

Texas did: the ten-contributor requirement was closely drawn to ensure that 

general-purpose committees were not utilized by small groups of individuals to 

evade campaign finance disclosure requirements. Accordingly, the district 

court granted summary judgment that the ten-contributor requirement was 

constitutional.

Finally, the district court rejected Plaintiffs’ as-applied challenge to the 

corporate contribution ban. The court determined that, because the committee 

at issue was not an independent expenditure-only committee, Texas had both 

an anticorruption and anticircumvention interest in banning corporate 

contributions to the committee because unlimited corporate contributions to 

the committee would risk quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. 

Therefore, the court granted summary judgment for Texas that the corporate 

contribution ban was constitutional as-applied to the proposed in-kind 

contribution of the email list. 

Plaintiffs then filed the instant appeal. Plaintiffs argue that (1) the 

district court applied the wrong standard of review in rejecting the Buckley

challenges to the 60-day, 500-dollar limit and the ten-contributor requirement, 

and under the proper level of scrutiny both requirements are unconstitutional, 

(2) the ten-contributor requirement is unconstitutional because it forces 

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association, (3) the treasurer-appointment requirement is an unconstitutional 

prior restraint, and (4) Texas’s corporate contributions ban to political 

committees is unconstitutional as-applied. Texas responds that (1) the district 

court erred in determining that the Plaintiffs’ challenges were not moot, and 

we lack jurisdiction to consider most of the Plaintiffs’ appeal, and (2) even if 

this court were to reach the merits of the Plaintiffs’ challenges, the campaignfinance regulations at issue are constitutional, and summary judgment was 

properly granted. 

II.

This court reviews questions of mootness de novo. See, e.g., Ctr. For 

Individual Freedom v. Carmouche, 449 F.3d 655, 659 (5th Cir. 2006). We also 

review a district court judgment rendered on cross-motions for summary 

judgment de novo. First Colony Life Ins. Co. v. Sanford, 555 F.3d 177, 180 (5th 

Cir. 2009). We independently review each motion with its supporting proof. 

Id. Summary judgment is proper when the pleadings, the discovery and 

disclosure material on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine 

dispute as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as 

a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). 

III.

We address at the outset whether we have jurisdiction to consider all of 

the Plaintiffs’ claims of unconstitutionality. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a 

Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 93-102 (1988). Texas argues most of the case is moot, 

and therefore we lack jurisdiction to consider Plaintiffs’ challenges to the 60-

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day, 500-dollar limit, the ten-contributor requirement, and the treasurerappointment requirement.14

A.

“A case becomes moot—and therefore no longer a Case or Controversy 

for purposes of Article III—when the issues presented are no longer live or the 

parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome.” Already, LLC v. 

Nike, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 721, 726 (2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Because sixty days have passed since the general-purpose committees suing 

here appointed a treasurer and registered with the Texas Ethics Committee, 

and each committee has amassed ten contributors, Texas Election Code § 

253.037(a) no longer limits the committees’ political expenditures or 

contributions. And if Texas Election Code § 253.037(a) no longer limits the 

committees’ expenditures and contributions, then Texas suggests the Plaintiffs 

lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome of the case because a 

determination that Texas Election Code § 253.037(a) was unconstitutional 

would not expand the Plaintiffs’ ability to engage in expenditures or

contributions.

In response to Texas’s mootness arguments, Plaintiffs invoke the 

disputes capable of repetition, yet evading review exception to mootness. 

See, e.g., S. Pac. Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U.S. 498, 515-16 (1911). To fall 

within the exception, a plaintiff must show “(1) the challenged action was in 

its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration, 

and (2) there was a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party 

would be subjected to the same action again.” Wilson v. Birnberg, 667 F.3d 

591, 596 (5th Cir. 2012). A plaintiff seeking to invoke the exception has the 

14 Texas concedes that Plaintiffs’ as-applied challenge to Texas Election Code § 

253.094(a) is not moot. 

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burden of demonstrating its applicability. See Libertarian Party v. Dardenne, 

595 F.3d 215, 217 (5th Cir. 2010).

Both parties agree that the first prong of the test is met. See, e.g., FEC 

v. Wis. Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449, 462 (2007) (“WRTL II”); Carmouche, 

449 F.3d at 661. Instead, they dispute whether Plaintiffs make a “reasonable 

showing that [they] will again be subjected to the alleged illegality.” City of 

L.A. v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 109 (1983).

This case is not moot. The Supreme Court has explained that “[o]ur 

concern” in capable of repetition, yet evading review cases is “whether the 

controversy was capable of repetition and not . . . whether the claimant had 

demonstrated that a reoccurrence of the dispute was more probable than not.” 

Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 318 n.6 (1988). Plaintiffs need not demonstrate 

with “mathematical precision” that they will be subject to the same illegality; 

rather, Plaintiffs just need to show “a reasonable expectation” that the 

challenged illegality will reoccur. Id. Plaintiffs make that showing: even 

though Plaintiffs’ expenditures are no longer limited by § 253.037(a), Plaintiffs’ 

ability to receive contributions from newly-formed general-purpose committees 

is still limited by § 253.037(a).

Notably, under Texas law, general-purpose committees can contribute to 

other general-purpose committees provided that the donations are properly 

disclosed. See, e.g., Tex. Elec. Code § 253.037(b). The treasurer-appointment 

requirement, 60-day, 500-dollar limit, and ten-contributor requirement 

therefore affect general-purpose committees in at least two ways:

• Until a committee appoints a treasurer, acquires ten contributors, 

and sixty days pass, § 253.037(a) limits the committee to only $500 

worth of expenditures and contributions.

• After the 60-day window has passed and the committee has acquired 

ten contributors, § 253.037(a) limits the committee’s ability to receive 

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contributions from newly-formed general-purpose committees that 

are subject to § 253.037(a).

The continuing limitation that § 253.037(a) creates on a general-purpose 

committee’s ability to receive contribution establishes a reasonable expectation 

that these Plaintiffs will again be subjected to the challenged provisions of § 

253.037(a). See, e.g., In re Hearst Newspapers, L.L.C., 641 F.3d 168, 175 (5th 

Cir. 2011). That the precise injury the Plaintiffs will suffer is slightly different 

does not matter: Plaintiffs seeking to invoke the exception need not show they 

will suffer the exact same injury so long as the injury is caused by the same 

alleged illegality,15 and both the contributing and the contributed-to party 

have sufficient injuries-in-fact to challenge campaign finance restrictions. See, 

e.g., McCutcheon v. FEC, 134 S. Ct. 1434, 1443-44 (2014) (plurality); In re Cao, 

619 F.3d 410, 421 (5th Cir. 2010) (en banc).

Moreover, the Texas Leadership Coalition (the 501(c)(4)) is not limited 

to trying to form only one general-purpose committee. As such, given its 

professed desire to continue trying to educate Catholic voters regarding their 

religious obligations, it is reasonable to believe that TLC may again be 

impacted by Tex. Elec. Code § 253.037(a). See, e.g., Bayou Liberty Ass’n, Inc. 

v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 217 F.3d 393, 399 (5th Cir. 2000). 

We conclude Plaintiffs can invoke the disputes capable of repetition, yet 

evading review exception to mootness. They can show that (1) the challenged 

action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or 

expiration, and (2) there is a reasonable expectation that, as either (i) the 

forming or (ii) the contributed-to party, the plaintiffs will again be impacted by 

15 See, e.g., WRTL II, 551 U.S. at 463; cf. Ne. Fla. Chapter of the Associated Gen. 

Contractors of Am. v. City of Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656, 662 (1993) (“The new ordinance may 

disadvantage them to a lesser degree than the old one, but . . . it disadvantages them in the 

same fundamental way.”).

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the treasurer appointment requirement, the 60-day, 500-dollar limit, and the 

ten-contributor requirement.

B.

Plaintiffs’ challenge is not moot for an additional reason. Our prior 

cases, which as a panel of this court we must follow, have concluded that in 

election law disputes “the Supreme Court has not always required that there 

be a likelihood that the same complaining party will be subject to the 

challenged action later.” Wilson, 667 F.3d at 596. Therefore, this court 

“dispens[es] with the same-party requirement” in election law cases, “and 

focus[es] instead upon the great likelihood that the issue will recur between 

the defendant and the other members of the public at large.” Kucinich v. Tex. 

Democratic Party, 563 F.3d 161, 165 (5th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks 

omitted); see also Moore v. Hoseman, 591 F.3d 741, 744 (5th Cir. 2009).

Under the standard articulated in Wilson, Moore, Kucinich, and 

Carmouche, a plaintiff seeking to invoke the exception must show that “other 

individuals certainly will be affected by the continuing existence” of the 

challenged provision. Carmouche, 449 F.3d at 662. Accordingly, “not every 

election case fits within the four corners of the capable-of-repetition but 

evading-review exception.” Wilson, 667 F.3d at 596 (internal quotation marks 

and alterations omitted). For example, cases involving “strictly personal” 

harm, id. at 597, or cases where the plaintiffs fail to show that the challenged 

illegality will again occur, see, e.g., Dardenne, 595 F.3d at 217-18, do not fit

within the exception. But, in election law cases such as this one, where (1) the 

state plans on continuing to enforce the challenged provision, and (2) that 

provision will affect other members of the public, the exception is met. See, 

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e.g., Moore, 591 F.3d at 745; Kucinich, 563 F.3d at 165; Carmouche, 449 F.3d 

at 662.16 

IV.

A.

“The right to participate in democracy through political contributions is 

protected by the First Amendment, but that right is not absolute.” 

McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1441. We apply the framework begun in Buckley v. 

Valeo to determine whether a campaign-finance regulation represents an 

unconstitutional intrusion on protected First Amendment rights.17 Buckley

and its progeny instruct that we should give varying levels of constructional 

scrutiny to campaign-finance regulations depending on the type of regulation 

at issue:

• Expenditure limitations receive “the exacting scrutiny applicable 

to limitations on core First Amendment rights of political 

expression.” Buckley, 424 U.S. at 44-45. A regulation limiting 

expenditures may only be upheld if the regulation “promotes a 

compelling interest and is the least restrictive means to further 

the articulated interest.” McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1444.18

• Contribution limitations receive a lessened, but nonetheless 

rigorous, level of scrutiny. Regulations limiting contributions may 

16 Texas’s attempts to argue that this case is somehow not sufficiently an election law 

case so as to fall within the exception are not well-taken given that Texas’s primary 

justification on the merits for the limits’ constitutionality concerns their role in preventing 

last-minute circumvention of disclosure requirements during an election. 17 Texas suggests analyzing these regulations as time, place, and manner restrictions 

on speech. We decline Texas’s invitation. See, e.g., Nixon v. Shrink Mo. Gov’t PAC, 528 U.S. 

377, 386 (2000) (noting Buckley’s rejection of time, place, and manner restriction analysis).

18 See also Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310, 340 (2010) (noting high level of 

scrutiny given to regulations limiting political speech).

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only be upheld if “the State demonstrates a sufficiently important 

interest and employs means closely drawn to avoid unnecessary 

abridgement of associational freedoms.” Id. (internal quotation 

marks omitted).

• Disclosure and organizational requirements receive a further 

lessened level of scrutiny. To defend disclosure and organizational 

requirements, the government must show a “sufficiently important 

governmental interest that bears a substantial relation” to the 

requirement. SpeechNow.org v. FEC, 599 F.3d 686, 696 (D.C. Cir. 

2010) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted).19

Under each of the tests, the government has the burden of demonstrating 

the constitutionality of its actions. McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1452. 

For defending expenditure and contribution limitations, the Supreme 

Court “has identified only one legitimate governmental 

interest . . . : preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption.” 

McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1450. Moreover, the anticorruption rationale itself 

“is not boundless.” Emily’s List v. FEC, 581 F.3d 1, 6 (D.C. Cir. 2009). Recent 

Supreme Court case law clarifies that the government’s interest in preventing 

corruption is limited to preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. 

McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1450-51.20 “[G]overnment regulation may not target 

19 See also Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 366-67; Vt. Right to Life Comm. v. Sorrell, ___ 

F.3d ___, 2014 WL 2958565, at *11 (2d Cir. July 2, 2014); Worley v. Fl. Sec’y of State, 717 

F.3d 1238, 1242-45 (11th Cir. 2013); Ctr. for Individual Freedom v. Madigan, 697 F.3d 464, 

476-77 (7th Cir. 2012); The Real Truth About Abortion, Inc. v. FEC, 681 F.3d 544, 548-49, 

551 n.3 (4th Cir. 2012); Nat’l Org. for Marriage v. McKee, 649 F.3d 34, 55 (1st Cir. 2011). 

20 The government’s interest in preventing corruption can also encompass regulations 

that prevent circumvention of laws that prevent corruption (such as contribution limits) 

provided that the anticircumvention measure is properly tailored. See, e.g., McCutcheon, 134 

S. Ct. at 1452-53; FEC v. Colo. Republican Fed. Campaign Comm., 533 U.S. 431, 456 (2001) 

(“Colorado Republican II”) (“[A]ll Members of the Court agree that circumvention is a valid 

theory of corruption; the remaining bone of contention is evidentiary.”). 

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the general gratitude a candidate may feel toward those who support him or 

his allies, or the political access such support may afford.” Id. at 1441. 

“Ingratiation and access . . . are not corruption,” Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 

360, and “[s]pending large sums of money in connection with elections, but not 

in connection with an effort to control the exercise of an officeholder’s official 

duties, does not give rise to . . . quid pro quo corruption,” McCutcheon, 134 S. 

at 1450. And finally, in determining whether the government has 

demonstrated a legitimate interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption or its 

appearance, a court cannot “accept[] mere conjecture as adequate to carry a 

First Amendment burden.” Id. at 1452.

Disclosure and organizational requirements may similarly be justified 

by a governmental interest in combating quid pro quo corruption or its 

appearance. See Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 369. But, unlike contribution 

and expenditure limits, the government may further defend disclosure 

regulations “based on a governmental interest in providing the electorate with 

information about the sources of election-related spending.” Id. at 367

(internal quotation marks and alteration omitted); see also SpeechNow, 599 

F.3d at 696.21

B.

Plaintiffs’ complaint raises both facial and as-applied challenges. 

Therefore, before evaluating the merits of the Plaintiffs’ challenges, we must 

be careful to properly define their scope because facial and as-applied 

challenges have different substantive requirements. See, e.g., Doe v. Reed, 561 

U.S. 186, 194 (2010). Though the precise boundaries of facial and as-applied 

challenges are somewhat elusive—certain challenges can have characteristics 

21 This list is not meant to be exclusive—other sufficiently important governmental 

interests may also be invoked to defend the constitutionality of disclosure and organizational 

requirements. See SpeechNow, 599 F.3d at 696. 

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of both—to categorize a challenge as facial or as-applied we look to see whether 

the “claim and the relief that would follow . . . reach beyond the particular 

circumstances of the[] plaintiffs.” Id. If so, regardless of how the challenge is 

labeled by a plaintiff, “[t]hey must therefore satisfy our standards for a facial 

challenge to the extent of that reach.” Id. 

We believe that Plaintiffs have properly labeled their challenges. They 

raise both facial and as-applied challenges to the 60-day, 500-dollar limit, the 

ten-contributor requirement, and the treasurer-appointment requirement. 

Plaintiffs raise only an as-applied challenge to the corporate contribution ban 

because they do not seek relief beyond the proposed in-kind contribution from 

TLC to TLC-IPA. 

Plaintiffs have two ways to prevail in their facial challenges to the 60-

day, 500-dollar limit, ten-contributor requirement, and treasurer-appointment 

requirement because this is a First Amendment case. First, Plaintiffs can 

“establish that no set of circumstances exists under which [the law] would be 

valid or that the statute lacks any plainly legitimate sweep.” United States v. 

Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 472 (2010) (internal quotation marks and citation

omitted). Second, Plaintiffs may also invalidate a statute as overbroad if they 

demonstrate that “a substantial number of [the law’s] applications are 

unconstitutional, judged in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” 

Id. at 473 (internal citations omitted).

With these principles in mind, we turn to the merits.

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V.

Plaintiffs’ raise facial and as-applied challenges that the 60-day, 500-

dollar limit violates the First Amendment. We hold that the 60-day, 500-dollar 

limit is facially unconstitutional.

A.

The district court characterized the 60-day, 500-dollar limit as a 

disclosure requirement, and accordingly chose to apply “exacting scrutiny.” 

The court examined whether there was “a substantial relation between the 

disclosure requirement and a sufficiently important governmental interest.” 

The parties dispute on appeal whether the district court applied the proper 

standard of review.

Plaintiffs argue that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit is a contribution and 

expenditure limit, and should be analyzed as such. Texas counters that the 

60-day, 500-day limit is not an expenditure or contribution limit, but rather a 

disclosure incentive. Because a specific-purpose committee is not subject to 

the 60-day, 500-dollar limit, Texas suggests that the purpose of the limit is to 

either (1) reinforce its disclosure regulations by encouraging parties to comply 

with the additional disclosures necessary to form a specific-purpose committee, 

or (2) ensure that the public has sufficient time to learn about the goals of, and 

contributors to, general-purpose committees given the committees’ potentially 

opaque nature.

To determine whether a rule is a disclosure requirement, or something 

more, we look to see the effect of the provision. Disclosure and disclaimer rules 

require the provision of information, and only incidentally prevent speech 

when the speaker is unwilling to provide the additional required information. 

See Doe, 561 U.S. at 196. By contrast, provisions that put a ceiling on speech 

even if a party is willing to provide all of the information that the government 

requests constitutes something more than a simple disclosure requirement. 

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The 60-day, 500-dollar limit places a ceiling on speech for sixty days even if a 

committee is willing to comply with all disclosure/disclaimer requirements 

applicable to general-purpose committees. As such, the 60-day, 500-dollar 

limit is an expenditure and contribution limit, and the district court erred by 

applying only the lower level of scrutiny applicable to disclosure requirements.

Cf. Buckley, 424 U.S. at 64 (“Unlike the overall limitations on contributions 

and expenditures, the disclosure requirements impose no ceiling on campaignrelated activities.”).

Texas’s counterarguments that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit is merely a 

disclosure incentive do not alter that conclusion. First, a specific-purpose 

committee formed less than 30 days before a primary or general election “may 

not knowingly make or authorize a campaign contribution or campaign 

expenditure supporting or opposing a candidate” for many statewide offices. 

Tex. Elec. Code § 253.031(c). When specific-purpose committees are also 

similarly subjected to a waiting period, Texas cannot claim that all a nascent 

political committee must do to engage in speech is to simply provide 

information to the government. Second, specific-purpose committees are 

fundamentally different from general-purpose committees insofar as they 

require fidelity to candidates rather than principles. And though we recognize 

that in many circumstances candidates and causes overlap, they do not always, 

and Texas’s fundamental requirement that committees “change [their] 

message” and pledge fidelity for or against particular candidates or measures, 

“or do not speak . . . contravenes the fundamental rule of protection under the 

First Amendment[] that a speaker has the autonomy to choose the content of 

his own message.” Ariz. Free Enter. Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, 131 

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S. Ct. 2806, 2820 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted).22 Third, that the 

60-day, 500-dollar limit may help prevent circumvention of Texas’s disclosure 

regime does not make the 60-day limit a disclosure requirement. A complete 

ban on political speech would certainly prevent circumvention of Texas’s 

disclosure regime, but no one would suggest that it is a disclosure regulation. 

Similarly here, the 60-day, 500-dollar limit may very well help to improve the 

transparency of Texas politics, but that does not make it a disclosure 

regulation for the purpose of determining the proper level of constitutional 

scrutiny.

We will analyze the 60-day, 500-dollar limit as a contribution and 

expenditure limit. But that determination is only the first step of the analysis 

because contribution limits and expenditure limits have different standards of 

review, and the hybrid nature of the 60-day, 500-dollar limit means that the 

provision acts alternatively as a contribution limit or as an expenditure limit 

depending on how the general-purpose committee wishes to spend its money. 

Because Plaintiffs raise a facial challenge and attempt to demonstrate that the 

provision is unconstitutional both when it operates as an expenditure limit, 

and when it acts as a contribution limit, we will analyze the provision first as 

a cap on expenditures, and then as a cap on contributions.

B.

The 60-day, 500-dollar limit on political expenditures primarily affects 

two types of expenditures by a general-purpose committee. First, it limits a 

committee’s ability to engage in independent expenditures. Second, it limits a 

committee’s ability to engage in coordinated expenditures with a candidate. As 

coordinated expenditures are constitutionally equivalent to contributions and 

22 Cf. Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 340 (“Prohibited, too, are restrictions distinguishing 

among different speakers, allowing speech by some but not others.”).

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can be regulated as such, see In re Cao, 619 F.3d at 416-17, we focus here on 

the 60-day, 500-dollar limit’s effect on independent expenditures. To 

withstand Plaintiffs’ constitutional challenge, Texas must show that a 60-day, 

500-dollar limit on independent expenditures “promotes a compelling interest 

and is the least restrictive means to further the articulated interest,” 

McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1444. Limits on independent expenditures “usually 

flunk” strict scrutiny. Wis. Right to Life State PAC v. Barland, 664 F.3d 139, 

153 (7th Cir. 2011). The 60-day, 500-dollar limit similarly fails.

In the first instance, the six-month waiting period for acquiring federal 

multicandidate political committee status does not support Texas’s claim that 

a 60-day limitation on independent expenditures is constitutional. Unlike 

Texas’s regulations at issue here, federal law does not contain a similar limit 

on independent expenditures by a committee waiting to acquire 

multicandidate status. See Buckley, 424 U.S. at 51; Cal. Med. Ass’n, 641 F.2d 

at 624. The Supreme Court’s approval of the federal contribution limits to a 

multicandidate committee at issue in California Medical Association v. FEC, 

453 U.S. 182 (1981) (“Cal-Med”), accordingly does not support Texas’s 

arguments here for limits on independent expenditures. See Texans for Free 

Enterp., 732 F.3d at 538-39; see also Cal-Med., 453 U.S. at 203 (Blackmun, J., 

concurring in part). 

Further, when we turn to applying constitutional scrutiny, the 

incompatibility of Texas’s position with Supreme Court precedent is clear. The 

Supreme Court has been unequivocal that, as a matter of law, independent 

expenditures do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. 

Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 357; Texans for Free Enter., 732 F.3d at 537. Texas 

therefore cannot establish that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit directly combats 

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corruption.23 And once Texas is shorn of a direct anticorruption justification 

for its temporal limitation on independent expenditures, then the state lacks a 

constitutionally sufficient justification for limiting a general-purpose 

committee’s independent expenditures. 

Texas also cannot justify its limit on speech on the basis of its 

informational interest in its disclosure regime because the State’s 

“informational interest in identifying the sources of support for” independent 

expenditures alone “is not enough to justify the First Amendment burden” of a 

limitation on independent expenditures. SpeechNow, 599 F.3d at 692 (internal 

quotation marks omitted).24 And to the extent that Texas tries to link 

circumvention of its disclosure requirements to its anticorruption interest25—

if such an argument is permissible at all26—Texas does not demonstrate proper 

tailoring. Though Texas complains that its existing disclosure laws contain 

loopholes that may be exploited, Texas could address those loopholes by 

strengthening its disclosure requirements—such as by expanding mandatory 

electronic or fax filing requirements for disclosures—rather than by instituting 

23 Texas tries to substantiate its corruption concerns by reference to the “Sharpstown 

scandal.” The Sharpstown scandal began with the discovery of a stock manipulation scheme 

involving a prominent businessman and Texas politicians that quickly exploded into 

something much bigger after an investigation revealed that the Governor and the Speaker of 

the Texas House of Representatives were, in effect, bribed into pushing legislation to aid the 

stock fraud scheme. See, e.g., Mutscher v. State, 514 S.W.2d 905 (Tex. Ct. Crim. App.1974). 

In the wake of the scandal, Texas passed comprehensive campaign finance reform legislation 

in an attempt to prevent future corruption scandals. See, e.g., Free Market Foundation v. 

Reisman, 540 F. Supp. 2d 751, 753 (W.D. Tex. 2008). But Supreme Court precedent squarely 

blocks Texas’s attempt to argue that independent expenditures lead to corruption. See, e.g.,

Am. Tradition P’ship v. Bullock, 132 S. Ct. 2490, 2491 (2012). 

24 Cf. Randall v. Sorrell, 548 U.S. 230, 244-46 (2006) (holding Vermont’s expenditure 

limitations unconstitutional under the First Amendment).

25 See, e.g., Stop This Insanity Inc. Emp. Leadership Fund v. FEC, ___ F.3d ___, 2014 

WL 3824225, at *5-6 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 5, 2014).

26 Disclosure laws are generally meant to be an alternative to, and not necessarily a 

justification for, the firm limits on political speech set by expenditure limits. See, e.g.,

Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 369 (“The Court has explained that disclosure is a less restrictive 

alternative to more comprehensive regulations of speech.”). 

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waiting periods on speech by newly-formed groups devoted to a particular issue 

or point of view. Cf. McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1458 (“Importantly, there are 

multiple alternatives available to Congress that would serve the Government’s

anticircumvention interest, while avoiding unnecessary abridgment of First 

Amendment rights.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

Moreover, when evaluating whether Texas demonstrates proper 

tailoring, we must evaluate whether the 60-day delay is necessary based on 

present circumstances—not the circumstances when the restrictions were 

originally passed into law. Cf. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 343 (2003). 

Recent campaign finance decisions by the Supreme Court have emphasized the 

role that advancing technology plays in enabling effective and quick disclosure 

of campaign finance activity. As Citizens United explained, “[w]ith the advent 

of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders 

and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected 

officials accountable for their positions and supporters.” 558 U.S. at 370. 

Accordingly, “[b]ecause massive quantities of information can be accessed at 

the click of a mouse, disclosure is effective to a degree not possible at the time” 

section 253.037(a) was passed. McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1460. Thus even if 

the 60-day, 500-dollar limit was at some point sufficiently tailored, that is no 

longer true. Notwithstanding the potential opacity of general-purpose 

committees, it strains credulity to suggest that it takes 60 days to inform the 

public as to who is spending money in electoral races. Cf. Family PAC v. 

McKenna, 685 F.3d 800, 805, 812-14 (9th Cir. 2011) (rejecting argument that 

a 21-day contribution limit was properly tailored in light of modern 

technology). The lack of a demonstrated need for a 60-day limit is a significant 

problem for Texas: “[i]n the First Amendment context, fit matters,” 

McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1456, and Texas’s choice to enact a 60-day speech 

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limit is badly “asymmetrical” to its interest in preventing quid pro quo

corruption, Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 361. 

Texas’s two main counterarguments that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit is 

properly tailored do not alter that conclusion. First, Texas argues that the 

provision is narrowly tailored because interested speakers have many other 

opportunities for speaking during the 60-day period, and as such, the 60-day, 

500-dollar limit does not prevent any citizen from speaking.27 But Texas’s 

27 Texas points us to Regan v. Taxation With Representation, 461 U.S. 540 (1983), to 

argue that the 501(c) organizations (TLC and SAFA) related to two of the general-purposes 

committees (TLC-IPA and FOFSA) “cannot turn around and use the First Amendment to 

demand government subsidies for their speech,” when the organizations earn government 

subsidies in the form of tax exemptions.

Regan has little to do with this case. Regan dealt with “the requirement that a 

nonprofit corporation establish a separate lobbying entity if contributions to the corporation 

for the conduct of other activities were to be tax-deductible.” FEC v. Mass. Citizens for Life, 

Inc., 479 U.S. 238, 256 n.9 (1986) (opinion of Brennan, J.). But here the general-purpose 

committee plaintiffs are separate entities, and those committees have their own First 

Amendment rights to engage in political speech. None of the cases that Texas cites stands 

for the proposition that the political committees’ rights to engage in political speech are 

somehow altered by the fact that individuals working for a 501(c) organization had the idea 

to form the general-purpose committees. To the contrary, in fact: the Supreme Court has 

regularly reminded the lower courts that organizations such as political committees and 

corporations have First Amendment rights to engage in political speech. See, e.g., Citizens 

United, 558 U.S. at 343; FEC v. Nat’l Conservative Political Action Comm., 470 U.S. 480, 494 

(1985). Further, here Texas is “plac[ing] obstacles in the path” of individuals’ and 

organizations’ exercise of their First Amendment rights. Regan, 461 U.S. at 549. Texas 

defines a political committee to be “a group of persons that has as a principal purpose 

accepting political contributions or making political expenditures,” Tex. Elec. Code § 

251.001(12), and the Texas Ethics Commission has interpreted that definition to include “a 

group of two or more people that accepts political contributions and/or makes political 

expenditures,” Texas Ethics Comm’n, supra note 3, at 1. As such, unlike the situation at 

issue in Regan where groups had the choice of applying for 501(c)(3) status, Texas does not 

make the political committee label voluntary—groups wishing to engage in collective political 

speech must comply with the burdens imposed by Texas law. And, “[i]t is rudimentary that 

the State cannot exact as the price” of the desire simply to participate in political activities

as a group without supporting a particular candidate or measure, “the forfeiture of First 

Amendment rights.” Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 351 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Texas’s additional suggestion that simply because they grant general-purpose 

committees some special privileges vis-à-vis other types of political committees, the state may 

regulate general-purpose committees as it pleases does no better. Just as the Citizens United 

and Bellotti Courts rejected the argument that simply because the state grants special 

privileges to corporations the state can regulate corporate speech as it pleases, see Citizens 

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argument runs contrary to both Supreme Court and circuit precedent. See, e.g., 

Citizens United 558 U.S. at 337-38 (noting that federal law enacted “a ban on 

corporate speech notwithstanding the fact that a PAC created by a corporation 

can still speak”); Texans for Free Enter., 732 F.3d at 539. Just as we do not 

permit the government to silence the New York Times because the reporters 

could shout-out their stories in Central Park or publish them on the internet, 

we do not permit the government to silence various political organizations 

simply because their component parts have other opportunities for speech. 

Texas’s limitations on general-purpose committees must rise and fall on their 

own merits.28

United, 558 U.S. 342-43; id. at 351; First Nat’l Bank of Bos. v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 779-86 

(1978), we reject Texas’s argument that because it grants special privileges to certain types 

of political committees, it may regulate the committees as it pleases. Notwithstanding 

Texas’s choice to grant certain privileges to certain types of committees, any restrictions on 

those committees’ political speech—particularly given the expansive definition of what 

constitutes a political committee under Texas law—must still withstand constitutional 

scrutiny under the appropriate test for the restriction at issue. 28 We are aware that in Stop This Insanity the D.C. Circuit considered the availability 

of other avenues in speech when determining whether a regulation on corporate political 

speech was permissible. See 2014 WL 3824225, at *3. Whatever the merits of the approach 

in Stop This Insanity, it would not change the result here because there are fundamental 

differences between federal law’s regulation of separate segregated funds and Texas’s 

regulation of general-purpose committees. 

As noted by the D.C. Circuit, under federal campaign finance law, separate segregated 

funds are essentially the appendix of federal campaign finance law—a vestigial surplusage 

no longer necessary and/or needed for corporations to engage in independent expenditures. 

Id. at *3-4.

But the same is not true for general-purpose committees in Texas. Under Texas law 

any group that engages in more than $500 of expenditures or contributions, and supports “a 

particular issue or point of view,” should register as a general-purpose committee, even if it 

chooses in a particular instance to “lend[] support to a particular candidate in an election.” 

Tex. Ethics Comm’n, supra note 3, at 2. As such, beyond perhaps the basic choice to 

participate in political activities as a group without wishing to declare fidelity to a 

candidate—which we refuse to consider “the hard way” of exercising First Amendment 

rights—the choice to form a general-purpose committee is in no way voluntary. Accordingly, 

even under the framework suggested by Stop This Insanity, Texas’s 60-day, 500-dollar limit 

and ten-contributor requirements create significant constitutional concerns because speakers 

supporting a cause (rather than a candidate) in Texas are presented with “a choice between 

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Second, Texas suggests that the provision is narrowly tailored because 

general-purpose committees can pick when the 60-day period runs. But we 

think Texas’s suggestion overlooks the practical reality that oftentimes few 

observers know the critical issues in an election (and the candidates’ position 

on those issues) until just days before. See, e.g., WRTL II, 551 U.S. at 462 

(plurality) (“But groups . . . cannot predict what issues will be matters of public 

concern . . . . In these cases, WRTL had no way of knowing well in advance that 

it would want to run ads on judicial filibusters . . . .”).29 After all, October 

Surprises are not called October Surprises because they happen in June. In 

such situations, “timing is of the essence . . . when an event occurs, it is often 

necessary to have one’s voice heard promptly, if it is to be considered at all.” 

Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 163 (1969) (Harlan, J., 

concurring). Accordingly, the 60-day limit “places a severe burden on speech 

because it may even preclude expression necessary to provide an immediate 

response to late-breaking events.” Ariz. Right to Life PAC v. Bayless, 320 F.3d 

1002, 1009 (9th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted).30 We reject 

Texas’s suggestion that the 60-day burden does not constitute a significant 

‘unfettered political speech and subjection to discriminatory fundraising limitations.’” Stop 

This Insanity, 2014 WL 3824225, at *4 (quoting Davis v. FEC, 554 U.S. 724, 739 (2008)). 

29 As the Supreme Court observed in Citizens United:

It is well known that the public begins to concentrate on elections only in the 

weeks immediately before they are held. There are short timeframes in which 

speech can have influence. The need or relevance of the speech will often first 

be apparent at this stage in the campaign. The decision to speak is made in 

the heat of political campaigns, when speakers react to messages conveyed by 

others.

558 U.S. at 334; see also N.Y. Progress & Protection PAC v. Walsh, 733 F.3d 483, 488 (2d Cir. 

2013) (“[T]he value of political speech is at its zenith at election time.”). 

30 See also Ariz. Right to Life PAC, 320 F.3d at 1008 (“To suggest that the waiting 

period is minimal ignores the reality of breakneck political campaigning and the importance 

of getting the message out in a timely, or, in some cases, even instantaneous fashion.”); cf. 

Family PAC v. McKenna, 685 F.3d 800, 812-13 (9th Cir. 2011) (noting contribution ban in the 

three weeks before an election constituted a significant burden on speech).

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restriction on speech because a general-purpose committee will know when it 

will be severely limited in its speech.

We therefore conclude that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit is 

unconstitutional insofar as it limits a general-purpose committee, such as TLCIPA, to funding only $500 in independent expenditures.

C.

Next we address the 60-day, 500-dollar limit as it affects a generalpurpose committee’s ability to fund contributions. Texas must show that the 

contribution limitations serve “a sufficiently important interest and employ[] 

means closely drawn.” Buckley, 424 U.S. at 25. And, just as with expenditure 

limitations, “the sole governmental interest . . . recognized as a justification for 

restricting contributions [is] the prevention of quid pro quo corruption.” Let’s 

Help Fla. v. McCrary, 621 F.2d 195, 199 (5th Cir. 1980). The Supreme Court’s 

recent decision in McCutcheon dictates the result here.

In McCutcheon, the Supreme Court dealt with the constitutionality of an 

aggregate contribution cap that limited the total amount that an individual 

could donate to all candidates, parties, and committees (and not the base 

contribution limit that could be donated to any one particular candidate, 

committee, or party). The Supreme Court found the aggregate limits 

unconstitutional because they did “little, if anything” to combat corruption, 

“while seriously restricting participation in the democratic process.” 

McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1442. As the Court noted, 

The difficulty is that once the aggregate limits kick in, they ban all 

contributions of any amount. But Congress’s selection of a $5,200 

base limit indicates its belief that contributions of that amount or 

less do not create a cognizable risk of corruption. If there is no 

corruption concern in giving nine candidates up to $5,200 each, it 

is difficult to understand how a tenth candidate can be regarded 

as corruptible if given $1,801, and all others corruptible if given a 

dime. And if there is no risk that additional candidates will be 

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corrupted by donations of up to $5,200, then the Government must 

defend the aggregate limits by demonstrating that they prevent 

circumvention of the base limits.

The problem is that they do not serve that function in any 

meaningful way.

Id. at 1452. 

Similarly here, Texas’s enshrinement of the 60-day, 500-dollar limit 

demonstrates the Texas Legislature’s belief that a $500 donation to any 

particular candidate does not pose a risk of corruption even if public knowledge 

of the source of the contribution is complicated by the proximity of the 

contribution to the committee’s formation. But if a single $500 contribution 

does not risk corruption, it is hard to see how three $167 contributions hold out 

such a significant risk of corruption that the former is permitted and the latter 

is not. And even more to the point, as the aggregate contributions limit is also 

reduced by independent expenditures, it is particularly hard to see how a $500 

contribution to a candidate by a newly-formed general-purpose committee does 

not create a cognizable risk of corruption, but a $15 contribution by a newlyformed committee that had engaged in $490 of independent expenditures does. 

The logic undergirding McCutcheon stands out as deeply problematic for

Texas’s attempts to justify its aggregate contributions cap—particularly as 

Cal-Med, Texas’s best authority in favor of a 60-day cap, deals primarily with 

base limits and not an aggregate contributions cap. See 2 U.S.C. § 441a(1)-(2); 

see also McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1442 n.3.

Texas must therefore try to justify the provision as an anticircumvention 

measure. But we do not believe Texas can justify the 60-day, 500-dollar limit 

on contributions as a measure to prevent circumvention of the contribution 

limits on specific-performance committees during legislative sessions and 

judicial elections. Tex. Elec. Code §§ 253.034(a), .153(a). In the first instance, 

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an ever-present 60-day, 500-dollar limitation that kicks in regardless of the 

proximity of the committee’s formation to a legislative session or a judicial 

election is vastly overbroad to the circumvention threat it is trying to combat. 

Cf. McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1458 (“[T]he indiscriminate ban on all 

contributions above the aggregate limits is disproportionate to the 

Government’s interest in preventing circumvention.”); First Nat’l Bank of Bos. 

v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 793 (1978) (noting that the government’s interest “is 

belied . . . by the provisions of the statute, which are both underinclusive and 

overinclusive”). But more importantly, Texas would still be unable to justify 

an aggregate limit—as opposed to per-candidate, per-committee, and per-party 

base limits—under the logic of McCutcheon. 

Texas’s further attempts to distinguish McCutcheon based on Texas’s 

interest in preventing circumvention of its disclosure requirements do not 

establish that Texas’s efforts are properly tailored. Even though the aggregate 

limit at issue here is only temporary, and, after the 60-day window passes, the 

general-purpose committee is largely free to spend as it pleases, Texas must 

still show that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit “employs means closely drawn.” 

But Texas does not provide any evidence supporting a 60-day aggregate 

contribution cap as necessary. See, e.g., Family PAC, 685 F.3d at 812-14 

(rejecting argument that a 21-day contribution limit was closely tailored in 

light of modern technology); see also McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1460 (noting 

role that advancing technology plays in enabling prompt disclosure); Citizens 

United, 558 U.S. at 369-70 (same). 

Texas also raises the argument that because a general-purpose 

committee could reform as a specific-purpose committee, and engage in speech, 

the 60-day, 500-dollar limit is supposedly no limit at all. But this argument 

does no better in the context of distinguishing McCutcheon than it does in 

supporting a 60-day, 500-dollar limit on independent expenditures. First, 

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under binding precedent, the availability of other avenues of speech does not 

excuse the imposition of an unconstitutional burden on organizations wanting 

to engage in speech. See, e.g., Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 337-38; Texans for 

Free Enter., 732 F.3d at 539. Second, even if we could consider such 

alternatives, Texas’s choice to force general-purpose committees to pledge 

fidelity to candidates rather than principles, as well as Texas Election Code § 

253.031(c)’s prohibition on expenditures or contributions by a specificperformance committee formed less than 30 days before an election, mean that 

a specific-performance committee is not a true constitutional substitute for 

speech by general-purpose committees. See Ariz. Free Enter., 131 S. Ct. at 

2820. 

We conclude that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit is unconstitutional insofar 

as it acts as an aggregate $500 contribution limit on newly-formed generalpurpose committees wishing to engage in political contributions such as it did 

on Plaintiffs FOFSA and Texas Freedom.

D.

To show that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit is facially unconstitutional, 

Plaintiffs need to demonstrate either that (1) no set of circumstances exist 

under which 60-day, 500-dollar limit is valid, or (2) a substantial number of 

the 60-day, 500-dollar limit’s applications are unconstitutional, when judged 

in relation to the limit’s plainly legitimate sweep. Plaintiffs make that 

showing. 

Plaintiffs have demonstrated that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit is 

unconstitutional both when it functions as a limitation on expenditures and 

when it functions as an aggregate contributions cap. As such, the 60-day limit 

appears to have no legitimate sweep (or at the very least is vastly overbroad). 

Nor is this a situation where we can rewrite Texas law to conform to 

constitutional requirements. See generally Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of N. 

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New England, 546 U.S. 320, 328-31 (2006). Either trying to shorten Texas’s 

60-day period into something much more compact, or trying to transform 

Texas’s aggregate contribution cap into a per-candidate contribution cap (and 

determine what that cap should be) would constitute “quintessentially 

legislative work.” Id. at 329. It is not our job to determine the maximum 

possible imposition on speech that Texas may enact, and save Texas’s statute 

by re-writing it contrary to its plain text so that it embodies the maximum 

constitutionally permissible limit on speech. Here Texas plainly intended to 

enact a 60-day aggregate expenditure and contributions cap, and we have 

determined that such a limit is unconstitutional. Therefore, the “ongoing chill 

upon speech that is beyond all doubt protected makes it necessary to invoke 

the earlier precedents that a statute which chills speech can and must be 

invalidated where its facial invalidity has been demonstrated.” Citizens 

United, 558 U.S. at 336. We REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit is constitutional, and RENDER 

summary judgment for the Plaintiffs that the 60-day limit created by Texas 

Election Code § 253.037(a)(1) is facially unconstitutional under the First 

Amendment.

VI.

Next we address the facial and as-applied challenges to the tencontributor requirement. Texas requires that a general-purpose committee 

have ten unique contributors before exceeding $500 in contributions or 

expenditures. Tex. Elec. Code § 253.037(a)(2). Plaintiffs raise two 

constitutional objections to the ten-contributor requirement. First, Plaintiffs 

argue that the ten-contributor requirement represents an unconstitutional 

expenditure and contribution limit under Buckley. Second, Plaintiffs argue 

that the ten-contributor requirement unconstitutionally abridges their 

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freedom of association because it forces them to associate with ten other 

contributors.

We hold that the ten-contributor requirement is a facially 

unconstitutional expenditure and contribution limit under Buckley. We 

therefore do not address Plaintiffs’ arguments that the ten-contributor 

requirement forces association.

A.

In analyzing Plaintiffs’ Buckley challenge to the ten-contributor 

requirement, the district court determined that the ten-contributor 

requirement was a disclosure requirement, and applied the level of scrutiny 

applicable to disclosure requirements. Under that level of scrutiny, the district 

court determined that the ten-contributor requirement survived constitutional 

scrutiny because it “ensures the committee is actually a committee and not 

merely an individual seeking to disguise his or her personal contributions.”

Plaintiffs argue on appeal that the district court should have analyzed 

the ten-contributor requirement under the heightened levels of scrutiny 

applicable to expenditure and contribution limits. Texas counters that the 

district court properly analyzed the provision as a disclosure requirement 

because the point of the ten-contributor requirement is to provide the 

electorate with information—that is to ensure that parties representing 

themselves as groups actually are groups. 

We agree with the Plaintiffs that the ten-contributor requirement is a 

contribution and expenditure limit. Unlike disclosure and organizational 

requirements, under which compliance is within the committee’s own control 

and the only limit on speech arises if a committee is not willing to comply with 

the burdens imposed by the law, the ten-contributor requirement prevents a 

general-purpose committee from exceeding $500 in expenditures and 

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contributions until the committee can persuade ten donors to contribute.31 Cf. 

Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 366 (differentiating appropriate level of scrutiny 

on provisions that burden the ability to speak and provisions that impose 

external ceilings on speech). Because compliance with the ten-contributor 

requirement is not within the committee’s own control, and until a committee 

is able to comply with the requirement there is a firm ceiling on the 

committee’s speech, we conclude the provision is a contribution and 

expenditure limit and should be analyzed as such. That the ten-contributor 

requirement also has the effect of improving the quality of disclosure in Texas 

does not alter the fact that the provision achieves that goal by limiting 

expenditures and contributions.

Therefore, we analyze the ten-contributor requirement first as a limit on 

expenditures, and then as a limit on contributions.

B.

As with the 60-day, 500-dollar limit, we primarily consider the effect of 

the ten-contributor requirement on independent expenditures when 

determining whether the ten-contributor requirement unconstitutionally 

burdens expenditures. To determine the constitutionality of the tencontributor requirement’s limitation on independent expenditures, we see 

whether the requirement “promotes a compelling interest and is the least 

restrictive means to further the articulated interest.” McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. 

at 1444. 

31 The ten-contributor requirement is not an organizational requirement that a 

general-purpose committee must have ten members. See, e.g., Tex. Elec. Code § 251.001(12), 

(14). For example, five people are fully capable of forming a general-purpose committee. See

Tex. Ethics Comm’n, supra note 3, at 1 (“[A] political committee is a group of two or more 

people that accepts political contributions and/or makes political expenditures.”). Those five 

people must just wait to receive contributions from ten contributors before exceeding $500 in 

contributions and expenditures.

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Texas cannot show the ten-contributor requirement directly combats 

corruption because independent expenditures do not give rise to corruption or 

the appearance of corruption. Am. Tradition P’ship, 132 S. Ct. at 2491; 

Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 357; Texans for Free Enter., 732 F.3d at 537. 

Accordingly, Texas is forced to try to defend the ten-contributor requirement 

on the basis that it supports Texas’s disclosure requirements. But that 

argument does no better. Insofar as Texas tries to link circumvention of its 

disclosure requirements to its anticorruption interest—assuming, without 

deciding, that such an argument is permissible—Texas fails to demonstrate 

proper tailoring on this record: the ten-contributor requirement is not the 

“least restrictive means to further” Texas’s “articulated interest,” McCutcheon, 

134 S. Ct. at 1444—more demanding disclosure and disclaimer requirements 

are. Insofar as Texas tries to link its disclosure requirements to the public’s 

informational interest in knowing who is spending money in elections, that 

interest “is not enough to justify the First Amendment burden” of a hard limit 

on speech. SpeechNow.org, 599 F.3d at 692.32 

Texas neither shows that the ten-contributor requirement promotes a 

compelling interest or is properly tailored. We determine that the tencontributor requirement unconstitutionally limits First Amendment rights 

insofar as it caps a newly-formed general-purpose committee at $500 worth of 

independent expenditures until the committee acquires ten contributors.

C.

To determine whether the ten-contributor requirement is constitutional 

as a contribution limit, we examine whether Texas “demonstrates a sufficiently 

32 The fifty-contributor requirement for federal multicandidate status lends Texas no 

support on this point because federal law does not limit a committee’s independent

expenditures during the waiting period. See Texans for Free Enterp., 732 F.3d at 538-39; see 

also Cal-Med., 453 U.S. at 203 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part).

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important interest and employs means closely drawn.” McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. 

at 1444. 

McCutcheon leads us to reject Texas’s defense of the ten-contributor 

requirement as a contribution limit.33 Texas does not show that its aggregate 

contribution cap directly advances the state’s interest in combatting quid pro 

quo corruption “in any meaningful way.” Id. at 1452. Nor is the provision a 

sufficiently tailored anticircumvention measure. Texas advances no reason 

why more narrowly tailored base contribution limits until a committee 

acquired ten contributors would not similarly serve its interests. Cf. 

McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1458. And even if Texas could demonstrate that percandidate, per-committee, and per-party base limits would not sufficiently 

prevent circumvention, § 253.037(a)’s aggregate contribution cap would still be 

poorly tailored to Texas’s limited anticircumvention interest insofar as it also 

caps general-purpose committees from contributing to ballot-measure 

committees, which do not give rise to quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. 

See, e.g., Citizens Against Rent Control/Coal. for Fair Housing v. City of 

Berkeley, 454 U.S. 290, 299-300 (1981); see also Bellotti, 435 U.S. at 790-91.

We conclude that the ten-contributor requirement does not withstand 

constitutional scrutiny as a contribution limit.

D.

Because the ten-contributor requirement is unconstitutional both 

insofar as it constitutes a $500 cap on independent expenditures and insofar 

as it constitutes a $500 aggregate contribution cap, we conclude that the tencontributor requirement has no legitimate sweep (or, at the very least, is vastly 

33 The fifty-contributor requirement for federal multicandidate committee status does 

not support Texas’s argument in favor of an aggregate limit because “PACs that do not qualify 

as multicandidate PACs must abide by the base limit[s] applicable to individual 

contributions.” McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1442 n.3 (emphasis added).

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overbroad in relation to any legitimate sweep it has). And, as with the 60-day, 

500-dollar limit, we do not believe that we can rewrite the ten-contributor 

requirement to conform to constitutional requirements because doing so would 

constitute “quintessentially legislative work,” Ayotte, 546 U.S. at 329, against 

the clear intent of the Texas Legislature. We REVERSE the district court’s 

grant of summary judgment that the ten-contributor requirement is 

constitutional, and RENDER summary judgment for the Plaintiffs that the 

ten-contributor requirement set out by Texas Election Code § 253.037(a)(2) is 

facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

VII.

We turn to Plaintiffs’ argument that Texas’s treasurer-appointment 

requirement represents an unconstitutional prior restraint. We conclude the 

treasurer-appointment requirement withstands constitutional scrutiny.

A.

Though prior restraints have long been constitutionally suspect,34 the 

precise boundaries of the constitutional prohibitions on prior restraints are not 

well defined.35 The classic prior restraint, of course, is an “administrative [or] 

judicial order[] forbidding certain communications when issued in advance of 

the time that such communications are to occur.” Alexander v. United States, 

509 U.S. 544, 550 (1993) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted); 

34 3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, § 1874, at 

732 (Boston, Hilliard, Gray, & Co. 1833) (“It is plain, then, that the language of this 

amendment imports no more, than that every man shall have a right to speak, write, and 

print his opinions upon any subject whatsoever, without any prior restraint . . . .”); see also 

Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454, 462 (1907) (noting the “main purpose” of the First 

Amendment was to prevent prior restraints).

35 “The phrase ‘prior restraint’,” the Supreme Court has explained, is neither “a selfwielding sword” nor “a talismanic test.” Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436, 441 

(1957).

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see, e.g., Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697 (1931). But concerns 

about prior restraints have also resulted in the invalidation of speech licensing 

schemes that give the licensor too much discretion in how to exercise his 

authority. See, e.g., Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publ’g Co., 486 U.S. 750, 757 

(1988); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 305-07 (1940). And beyond 

licensing schemes where officials have discretion, the Court has also called into 

question regulations that require registration before certain types of speech. 

See, e.g., Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of N.Y., Inc. v. Vill. of Stratton, 536 

U.S. 150, 164-69 (2002); Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 525 (1945).

Under Texas law, a general-purpose committee may not accept political 

contributions in excess of $500 or engage in more than $500 in aggregate 

expenditures and contributions until, among other things, a committeetreasurer has been appointed (the “treasurer-appointment” requirement). See, 

e.g., Tex. Ethics Comm’n, Ethics Advisory Op. No. 161 (1993); see also Tex. 

Elec. Code §§ 253.031(b), .037(a). Plaintiffs argue that the treasurerappointment requirement falls into the latter category of impermissible preregistration requirements. But the treasurer-appointment requirement differs 

from the permitting regimes in Village of Stratton and Thomas in at least one 

important regard. Both Village of Stratton and Thomas dealt with registration 

requirements that took effect before any speech had occurred. See, e.g., Vill. of 

Stratton, 536 US. at 165-66 (“It is offensive . . . to the very notion of a free 

society—that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first 

inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors and then obtain 

a permit to do so.”); Thomas, 323 U.S. at 540. In contrast, the treasurerappointment requirement does not similarly regulate speech. Not only are 

individuals in Texas entirely free to engage in whatever political speech they 

wish, but also a group of citizens interested in forming a general-purpose 

committee need only register and appoint a campaign treasurer before political 

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contributions or expenditures exceed $500. See Tex. Ethics Comm’n, Ethics 

Advisory Op. No. 161 (1993); see also Tex. Elec. Code § 253.031(b). As such, 

many of the limitations on spontaneous speech that the Court has found 

constitutionally repugnant in Village of Stratton simply are not present here—

no one has to comply with the treasurer-appointment requirement to give a 

speech or pass out a simple handbill to their neighbors.

However, just as Texas’s treasurer-appointment requirement is different 

from the pre-registration requirements rejected in Village of Stratton and 

Thomas, it is also different from some other committee-treasurer requirements 

insofar as it requires registration before exceeding a certain amount of political 

spending rather than a certain number of days after exceeding a certain 

amount of political spending. Federal law, for example, presently requires a 

political committee to register no later than ten days after engaging in more 

than $1000 of expenditures or receiving more than $1000 of contributions. See, 

e.g., 2 U.S.C. § 433(a); 11 C.F.R. § 102.1(d). Because Texas’s reporting 

requirements are different from the federal requirements, Buckley’s approval36

of the federal reporting requirements does not dictate the result here, and we 

have to scrutinize the treasurer-appointment requirement to determine 

whether it passes constitutional scrutiny. See Vill. of Stratton, 536 U.S. at 165.

B.

Neither party offers much suggestion as to what level of scrutiny should 

be applied to analyze the treasurer-appointment requirement. To be sure, the 

Supreme Court has observed that “[a]ny system of prior restraints of 

expression bears a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.” N.Y. 

Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 714 (1971). But that is not a standard 

of review, and judicial decisions analyzing prior restraints have applied 

36 See 424 U.S. at 81-82.

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different standards of review depending on the restraint at issue. See, e.g., 

Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U.S. 20, 33 (1984); Milwaukee Police Ass’n 

v. Jones, 192 F.3d 742, 749 (7th Cir. 1999) (“We note initially that the [plaintiff] 

is simply wrong in arguing that all prior restraints on speech are analyzed 

under the same test.”). And, most importantly, neither Village of Stratton nor 

Thomas explained the proper constitutional test for analyzing registration 

requirements. See Vill. of Stratton, 536 U.S. at 164. The Village of Stratton 

Court found it “unnecessary” to determine the standard of review “because the 

breadth of speech affected by the ordinance and the nature of the regulation 

make it clear that the Court of Appeals erred in upholding it.” Id.37 Because 

the treasurer-appointment requirement does not sweep as broadly as the 

restriction in Village of Stratton, however, we do not believe we can similarly 

refrain from deciding the issue of the proper standard of review.

In the absence of more specific guidance, we analyze the treasurerappointment requirement as a disclosure and/or organizational requirement. 

We arrive at that result for two reasons. 

First, and foremost, the treasurer-appointment requirement is a 

disclosure requirement: all that the provision requires is that a generalpurpose committee take simple steps to formalize its organizational structure 

and divulge additional information to the government.38 And unlike (1) the 60-

day, 500-dollar limit, (2) the ten-contributor requirement, and (3) other

temporal and monetary limitations on contributions and expenditures, 

general-purpose committees remain fully in control of their compliance with 

37 The Village of Stratton Court ended up looking “to the amount of speech covered by 

the ordinance and whether there is an appropriate balance between the affected speech and 

the governmental interests that the ordinance purports to serve.” 536 U.S. at 165.

38 See also Jack M. Raines et al, The Texas Election Code and the 70th Legislature, 40

Baylor L. Rev. 1, 31 (1988) (characterizing the $500 registration threshold as a disclosure 

requirement). 

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the treasurer-appointment requirement. No external factor limits the 

Committee’s ability to speak: the committee does not have to wait for sixty days 

(or an election cycle) to pass, or persuade ten contributors to contribute. 

Accordingly, a lower level of scrutiny is appropriate because any limit on 

speech created by the requirement arises solely from the committee’s own 

choice to not provide information to the government. Cf. Citizens United, 558 

U.S. at 366 (differentiating appropriate level of scrutiny on provisions that 

burden the ability to speak and provisions that impose external ceilings on 

speech); The Real Truth About Abortion, Inc., 681 F.3d at 548-49 (same). 

Second, to the extent we still have concerns regarding prior restraints in 

the campaign-finance context, those concerns can be addressed through the 

existing constitutional test for disclosure requirements. Cf. McCutcheon, 134 

S. Ct. at 1450 (noting that the “established First Amendment analysis already 

takes account of any ‘collective’ interest that may justify restrictions on 

individual speech”). Our scrutiny of disclosure and/or organizational 

requirements is not a rubber stamp, see, e.g., Davis v. FEC, 554 U.S. 724, 744 

(2008), and Texas will have to persuasively defend a registration requirement 

that requires disclosure of the treasurer before a general-purpose committee 

exceeds $500 in order to demonstrate that the law is appropriately tailored. 

We see no need to create a bespoke level of scrutiny for the analysis of the 

treasurer-appointment requirement when our existing test can adequately 

account for the nuances of the Plaintiffs’ challenge.39

39 Cf. McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 357 (Ginsburg, J., 

concurring) (noting that the Court was “leaving open matters not presented by McIntyre’s 

handbills”).

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C.

Plaintiffs concede that Texas has a sufficiently important interest to 

justify the constitutionality of the treasurer-appointment requirement. As the 

D.C. Circuit explained in SpeechNow:

[T]he public has an interest in knowing who is speaking about a 

candidate and who is funding that speech, no matter whether the 

contributions were made toward administrative expenses or 

independent expenditures. Further, requiring disclosure of such 

information deters and helps expose violations of other campaign 

finance restrictions such as those barring contributions from 

foreign corporations or individuals. These are sufficiently 

important governmental interests to justify requiring [the 

Plaintiffs] to organize and report . . . as a political committee.

599 F.3d at 698; see also Buckley, 424 U.S. at 66-68; Vt. Right to Life Comm., 

2014 WL 2958565, at *11; Ctr. for Individual Freedom, 697 F.3d at 477-78;

Nat’l Org. for Marriage, 649 F.3d at 57-58; Human Life of Wash. Inc., 624 F.3d 

at 1006.

Accordingly, we deal here with a dispute between the parties as to 

whether the treasurer-appointment requirement is properly tailored. To 

determine this, we look to see whether there is “a relevant correlation or 

substantial relation between the governmental interest and the information 

required to be disclosed.” Davis, 554 U.S. at 744 (internal quotation marks 

omitted).

Plaintiffs claim the treasurer-appointment requirement fails tailoring 

analysis because Texas could lessen the burden of the treasurer-appointment 

requirement by requiring registration after a general-purpose committee has 

exceeded a certain level of spending. Texas meanwhile defends the provision 

as properly tailored given the State’s interest in promoting disclosure and 

ensuring compliance with state campaign finance laws. 

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We conclude that the treasurer-appointment requirement withstands 

constitutional scrutiny. First, any burden created by the treasurerappointment requirement—essentially filling out and putting a three-page 

form that asks for basic information in the mail40—appears to be exceedingly 

minimal. See, e.g., SpeechNow, 599 F.3d at 697 (“Nor do the organizational 

requirements that [plaintiff] protests, such as designating a treasurer . . . 

impose much of an additional burden . . . .”).41 None of the Plaintiffs, for 

example, explain how the treasurer-appointment requirement (as opposed to 

the 60-day limit) actually burdened or impacted—in any way—their ability to 

form a general-purpose group to speak on their behalf. And without a 

persuasive explanation as to why the treasurer-appointment requirement 

constitutes a burden, Plaintiffs’ constitutional challenge faces an uphill battle. 

Cf. Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 337-39 (noting the “onerous restrictions” on 

political committees imposed by federal law that political committees must 

comply with “just to speak”).

40 See Tex. Ethics Comm’n, Form GTA (Sept. 1, 2003 Rev.), available at 

http://www.ethics.state.tx.us/forms/gta.pdf. As the Plaintiffs’ complaint notes, the notice is 

effective when postmarked. See Tex. Elec. Code § 251.007; see also Raines et al, supra note 

38, at 20 (former Texas Secretary of State explaining Texas’s timing rules on campaign 

treasurer appointments). And should it be a weekend or a holiday when a postmark may not 

be immediately available, see, e.g., Village of Stratton, 536 U.S. at 167-68 (noting that 

ordinance prevented spontaneous speech on holidays and weekends), the Texas Election Code 

mailbox rule also accepts filings as timely “if the person required to take the action furnishes 

satisfactory proof that it was deposited in the mail or with a common or contract carrier 

within the period or before the deadline.” Tex. Elec. Code § 251.007. 

41 See also Worley, 717 F.3d at 1250 (noting minimal burden imposed by similar 

requirements); Iowa Right to Life Comm. v. Tooker, 717 F.3d 576, 593-96 (8th Cir. 2013) 

(noting minimal burden created by short paperwork requirement). Our analysis of Texas’s 

requirement also takes into account that improving technology is a two-way street for the 

parties. Just as technological improvements are relevant to the tailoring analysis of 

contribution and expenditure limits insofar as they permit the more rapid disbursement of 

information, we also believe that technological improvements are relevant to the analysis of 

the burden of disclosure requirements insofar as they lessen the difficulty of tracking, 

compiling, and disclosing the information that a state requests.

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When set against that burden, the treasurer-appointment requirement 

more than justifies its existence. The treasurer serves as the cornerstone of 

Texas’s entire general-purpose committee campaign-finance disclosure regime. 

See, e.g., Tex. Elec. Code §§ 254.153, .154, .1541, .155, .159, .160, .161. Thus 

Texas’s requirement that committees appoint a committee treasurer bears a 

substantial relationship to its informational interest in ensuring the smooth 

functioning of its campaign finance disclosure scheme. And Texas’s 

justification for a registration requirement that kicks in before a committee 

reaches a certain level of activity rather than after is all the more persuasive 

in light of today’s result. See, e.g., Senate Comm. on Elections, Bill Analysis, 

Tex. S.B. 1068, 69th Leg. R.S., at 1 (1985) (noting problems Texas was having 

with the “[l]ast minute formation of general-purpose political committees for 

the purpose of avoiding filing requirements”). Striking down Texas’s 60-day 

waiting period, thereby deepening Texas’s reliance on prompt and full 

compliance with its disclosure requirements in order to deter and detect 

corruption, but then undercutting Texas’s disclosure regime by forcing Texas 

to wait further to receive information from active general-purpose committees, 

would amount to little more than a judicial bait-and-switch. Cf. Ctr. For 

Individual Freedom, 697 F.3d at 490 (“The need for an effective and 

comprehensive disclosure system is especially valuable after Citizens 

United . . . .”). This court is not blind to the fact that Texas’s disclosure scheme, 

given Texas’s near-total aversion to spending limits, plays a relatively more 

important role in preventing corruption or its appearance in Texas than in

many other states, and we refuse to (1) force Texas to simultaneously rely more 

on its disclosure scheme, but then (2) further complicate Texas’s efforts to 

make it effective.

Had Texas required registration before a general-purpose committee 

engaged in any political activity, this would be a vastly different case given 

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Village of Stratton and Thomas. But Texas has excerpted small-scale generalpurpose committee political activity from its registration requirements,42 and 

we are unwilling to say, particularly given this record, that the Constitution 

requires Texas to wait further before demanding to know who on the 

committee is responsible for the committee’s compliance with Texas’s 

disclosure regime. We AFFIRM the district court’s determination that Texas 

Election Code § 253.037(a)(1)’s treasurer-appointment requirement is 

constitutional both facially and as-applied to these plaintiffs.

VIII.

Finally, we address Texas Leadership Coalition’s and the Texas 

Leadership Coalition-Institute for Public Advocacy’s narrow as-applied 

challenge to Texas’s ban on corporate contributions to political committees. 

See Tex. Elec. Code § 253.094(a). The two entities ask us to determine that it 

is unconstitutional for Texas to bar TLC from making an in-kind donation of 

an email mailing list to TLC-IPA. Plaintiffs promise that the email contact list 

will be used only for distributing independent expenditure-funded 

advertisements.

Plaintiffs’ challenge comes at a time that the federal courts are 

reevaluating the limits on corporate spending in politics. In Citizens United, 

the Supreme Court ruled that a federal ban on independent expenditures by 

corporations is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. 558 U.S. at 365-

66. And then in Texans for Free Enterprise this court followed a growing 

judicial consensus among the circuit courts that limits on corporate 

42 See Tex. Ethics Comm’n, Ethics Advisory Op. No. 161 (1993); see also Tex. Elec. 

Code § 253.031(b).

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contributions to independent-expenditure-only committees are likewise 

unconstitutional. 732 F.3d at 537-38.43 

Contributions earmarked solely for use in independent expenditures by 

“hybrid” political committees that engage in both independent expenditures 

and direct contributions to candidates appears destined to be a coming 

campaign-finance law battleground.44 The district court, following a line of 

precedent holding that merely requiring separate hard and soft money 

accounts is not enough to prevent quid pro quo corruption or its appearance in 

the context of hybrid PACs,45 held that Texas could ban corporate contributions 

to hybrid PACs. The district court further noted that because the contribution 

at issue in this as-applied challenge was “information rather than funds” the 

state’s corruption concern was further strengthened “because information 

cannot be segregated in a separate account.” We agree with the district court 

that Texas may constitutionally regulate the contemplated in-kind 

43 See, e.g., Republican Party of N.M. v. King, 741 F.3d 1089, 1103 (10th Cir. 2013); 

N.Y. Progress & Protection PAC, 733 F.3d at 488; Wis. Right to Life State Political Action 

Comm., 664 F.3d at 143; Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce v. City of Long Beach, 603 

F.3d 684, 696 (9th Cir. 2010); SpeechNow, 599 F.3d at 694-95.

44 See, e.g., Vt. Right to Life Comm., Inc., 2014 WL 2958565, at *18-19 (“A separate 

bank account may be relevant, but it does not prevent coordinated expenditures—whereby 

funds are spent in coordination with the candidate.”); Republican Party of N.M., 741 F.3d at 

1097-98 (“[N]o anti-corruption interest is furthered as long as the [hybrid committee] 

maintains an account segregated from its candidate contributions.”); Ala. Democratic 

Conference v. Broussard, 541 F. App’x 931, 935 (2013) (“When an organization engages in 

independent expenditures as well as campaign contributions . . . its independence may be 

called into question and concerns of corruption may reappear. At the very least, the public 

may believe that corruption continues to exist, despite the use of separate bank accounts, 

because both accounts are controlled and can be coordinated by the same entity.”); cf. Emily’s 

List, 581 F.3d at 11-12 (“A non-profit that makes expenditures to support federal candidates 

does not suddenly forfeit its First Amendment rights when it decides also to make direct 

contributions to parties or candidates. Rather, it simply must ensure, to avoid circumvention 

of individual contribution limits by its donors, that its contributions to parties or candidates 

come from a hard-money account.”). 

45 See, e.g., Stop this Insanity, Inc. Emp. Leadership Fund v. FEC, 902 F. Supp. 2d 23, 

43 (D.D.C. 2012).

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contribution of the email list, though we do so on considerably narrower 

grounds than embraced by the district court. 

Texas has decided, as the Supreme Court’s campaign-finance 

jurisprudence permits, to entirely ban corporate contributions to candidates. 

See, e.g., FEC v. Beaumont, 539 U.S. 146, 149 (2003) (“Since 1907, federal law 

has barred corporations from contributing directly to candidates for federal 

office. We hold that applying the prohibition to nonprofit advocacy 

corporations is consistent with the First Amendment.”).46 In turn, Texas’s ban 

on corporate contributions to political committees engaging in political 

contributions serves as an anticircumvention measure to prevent corporations 

from using a political committee to do an end-run around Texas’s direct 

contribution ban. Cf. Emily’s List, 581 F.3d at 11-12 (explaining that political 

committees that make contributions can be required to make contributions 

from a hard money account subject to contribution limitations); N.C. Right to 

Life, Inc. v. Leake, 525 F.3d 274, 292 (4th Cir. 2008) (noting corruption risk 

arising from committees funneling money to candidates). And the Plaintiffs 

do not deny that email mailing lists, and the email addresses that comprise 

them, have actual monetary value and can be sold.47 Accordingly, it seems 

46 See also In re Cao, 619 F.3d at 422 (“[W]e do not read Citizens United as changing 

how this court should evaluate contribution limits . . . .”).

47 See, e.g., ‘Electioneering’ Is Its Own Industry, Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss), June 

18, 2014, at A10 (“A component of having a steady stream of dollars is to have a good mailing 

list—and such a list with direct contact information to those with a history of giving is as 

valuable as the gold the list generates.”); Luke Rosiak, Gingrich’s Campaign Payments Spark 

Questions, Wash. Times, Feb. 20, 2012, at A1 (“Mr. Gingrich personally sold his campaign a 

mailing list of names of supporters for nearly $50,000 . . . .”); Molly Ball, Sharron Angle, Joe 

Miller, Christine O’Donnell Fall Forward After 2010 Flops, Politico (Mar. 25, 2011, 2:11 PM), 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51950.html (“[T]oday’s failed candidates came 

away from the election with something perhaps more valuable than a seat in Congress: email 

lists of supporters and small donors numbering in the tens of thousands.”); Mike Allen, Bush 

Goes for ‘Icing’ in Louisiana; GOP Pours Cash Into Senate Race Viewed as ’04 Test, Wash. 

Post, December 4, 2002 (“Besides raising $1.3 million for Terrell today, Bush has given her 

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that Texas has a valid anticorruption interest in ensuring that a corporation 

cannot use a political committee to transfer an email mailing list from the 

corporation to a candidate. Even if the state does not have an anticorruption 

interest in limiting contributions intended to support independent 

expenditures, see, e.g., Texans for Free Enter., 732 F.3d at 538-39, the state 

does have an anticorruption interest in ensuring those donations facilitate only 

independent expenditures.

The parties dispute whether Texas’s anticorruption interest extends to 

blocking the corporate donation of an email mailing list when the political 

committee assures the state that the mailing list will only be used in support 

of independent expenditures. To support their arguments that Texas cannot 

constitutionally block the contribution, Plaintiffs point to two sources of 

authority: (1) case law holding that governments cannot bar corporate 

contributions to independent-expenditure-only political committees,48 and (2) 

case law suggesting that the government cannot regulate contributions to 

hybrid political committees provided that the unlimited contributions are kept 

in a soft-money account separate from the political committee’s hard-money 

account (which remains subject to a contribution limit).49 Texas counters by 

(1) distinguishing the cases dealing with independent-expenditure-only 

committees on the basis that the general-purpose committee at issue here is 

not an independent-expenditure-only committee, and (2) pointing to case law 

suggesting that a state may regulate contributions to hybrid PACs even where 

campaign rare access to his database of national donors, which one official called the most 

valuable mailing list in politics.”). 

48 See, e.g., Texans for Free Enter., 732 F.3d at 537-38.

49 See, e.g., Republican Party of N.M., 741 F.3d at 1097-98; Emily’s List, 581 F.3d at

11-12.

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the committee suggests that the funds will only be used for independent 

expenditures.50

We agree with Texas that the cases dealing with independentexpenditure-only committees are not particularly helpful for Plaintiffs’ claims. 

As such, we focus on the case law dealing with hybrid political committees that 

both engage in independent expenditures and make political contributions. 

But those cases do not help the Plaintiffs either. Regardless of the 

constitutionality of contribution limitations on donations to hybrid PACs that 

are earmarked solely for use on independent expenditures, the premise 

underlying all of the decisions cited by both parties is that the state is 

permitted to undertake some reasonable measures to ensure that any 

contribution limitations are not circumvented. The courts examining the issue 

simply disagree as to what those measures may be. This case differs from even 

the authorities relied on by the Plaintiffs insofar as the Plaintiffs here seem 

almost willful in not explaining what safeguards are in place to ensure the 

donated email mailing list will only be used in support of independent 

expenditures other than the general-purpose committee’s own good intentions. 

Accord Republican Party of N.M., 741 F.3d at 1097-98 (noting existence of 

segregated accounts protects the state’s anticorruption interest); Emily’s List, 

581 F.3d at 11-12 (same). 

The Plaintiffs’ failure to so explain any actual safeguards beyond 

potentially opening a separate bank account to deposit contributions raised 

with the email list is dispositive of their as-applied challenge. Though we do 

not weigh in on the precise safeguards that must be present (such as a 

segregated hard money account or the like)—or whether any level of 

50 See, e.g., Vt. Right to Life Comm., Inc., 2014 WL 2958565, at *18-19; Ala. Democratic 

Conference, 541 F. App’x at 935.

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safeguards is sufficient—before a state lacks a sufficient anticorruption 

interest to regulate contributions to a hybrid PAC earmarked for independent 

expenditures, we hold that the state’s interest in preventing quid pro quo

corruption and its appearance permits the state to insist, at the very least, that 

there is some safeguard before permitting the contributions of items of fungible 

value. The state need not trust solely in its disclosure regulations and a 

committee’s good faith to prevent quid pro quo corruption and its appearance.

Cf. Buckley, 424 U.S. at 27-28 (“Congress was surely entitled to conclude that 

disclosure was only a partial measure, and that contribution ceilings were a 

necessary legislative concomitant to deal with the reality or appearance of 

corruption inherent in a system permitting unlimited financial contributions, 

even when the identities of the contributors and the amounts of their 

contributions are fully disclosed.”). And that narrow determination is the only 

one we need to make to resolve Plaintiffs’ as-applied challenge.

In order to defend its prohibition on Plaintiffs’ proposed contribution, 

Texas must show “a sufficiently important interest and employ[] means closely 

drawn.” McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1444. Texas has an anticircumvention 

interest in preventing corporations from evading its ban on corporate 

contributions to candidates through corporate contributions to a generalpurpose committee that (1) engages in independent expenditures and 

corporate contributions and (2) lacks sufficient internal controls to safeguard 

against the risk that the corporate contributions, even if formally earmarked 

for independent expenditures, could be funneled to a candidate. That 

anticircumvention interest represents a sufficiently important state interest. 

Cf. Colorado Republican II, 533 U.S. at 431 (approving of anticircumvention 

as a valid theory of combatting corruption). Likewise, Texas’s complete ban on 

Plaintiffs’ proposed contribution is closely drawn to its anticircumvention 

interest insofar as Plaintiffs have failed to provide any clear safeguard that 

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sufficiently assures that no part of the corporate contribution will end up being 

transferred to a candidate. 

We AFFIRM that Texas Election Code § 253.094(a)’s restriction on 

corporate contributions to a general-purpose committee is constitutional asapplied to the in-kind contribution of an email mailing list from Texas 

Leadership Coalition to the Texas Leadership Coalition-Institute for Public 

Advocacy.

IX.

We AFFIRM the district court’s grant of summary judgment that the 

treasurer-appointment requirement is constitutional facially and as-applied. 

We AFFIRM the district court’s grant of summary judgment that the corporate 

contribution ban is constitutional as-applied to the in-kind contribution of an 

email mailing list from Texas Leadership Coalition to the Texas Leadership 

Coalition-Institute for Public Advocacy. We REVERSE the district court’s 

determinations that the 60-day, 500-dollar limit and the ten-contributor 

requirement are constitutional, and RENDER judgment that the 60-day, 500-

dollar limit and ten-contributor requirement are facially unconstitutional as 

contrary to the First Amendment. Finally, we REMAND for further 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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