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AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY FOUNDATION v. BONTA 

Opinion of the Court 

for  Prosperity  Foundation  v.  Harris,  809  F. 3d  536  (2015) 
(per curiam).  The court held that it was bound by Circuit
precedent to reject the petitioners’ facial challenge.  Id., at 
538  (citing  Center  for  Competitive  Politics  v.  Harris,  784 
F. 3d 1307, 1317 (2015)).  And reviewing the petitioners’ as-
applied claims under an “exacting scrutiny” standard, the
panel narrowed the injunction, allowing the Attorney Gen-
eral to collect the petitioners’ Schedule Bs so long as he did 
not publicly disclose them.  809 F. 3d, at 538, 543. 

On remand, the District Court held bench trials in both 
cases,  after  which  it  entered  judgment  for  the  petitioners
and permanently enjoined the Attorney General from col-
lecting their Schedule Bs.  Americans for Prosperity Foun-
dation  v.  Harris,  182  F. Supp. 3d  1049  (CD  Cal.  2016); 
Thomas More Law Center v. Harris, 2016 WL 6781090 (CD 
Cal., Nov. 16, 2016).  Applying exacting scrutiny, the Dis-
trict Court held that disclosure of Schedule Bs was not nar-
rowly tailored to the State’s interest in investigating chari-
table  misconduct.    The  court  credited  testimony  from
California officials that Schedule Bs were rarely used to au-
dit or investigate charities.  And it found that even where 
Schedule  B  information  was  used,  that  information  could 
be obtained from other sources. 

The court also determined that the disclosure regime bur-
dened the associational rights of donors.  In both cases, the 
court found that the petitioners had suffered from threats
and harassment in the past, and that donors were likely to 
face similar retaliation in the future if their affiliations be-
came publicly known.  For example, the CEO of the Foun-
dation testified that a technology contractor working at the
Foundation’s headquarters had posted online that he was 
“inside  the  belly  of  the  beast”  and  “could  easily  walk  into
[the CEO’s] office and slit his throat.”  182 F. Supp. 3d, at 
1056.  And the Law Center introduced evidence that it had 
received “threats, harassing calls, intimidating and obscene 
emails, and even pornographic letters.”  2016 WL 6781090,