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Page Number: 18

16 

SUSAN B. ANTHONY LIST v. DRIEHAUS 

Opinion of the Court 

and resources to hire legal counsel and respond to discov-
ery requests in the crucial days leading up to an election.
And where, as here, a Commission panel issues a preelec-
tion  probable-cause  finding,  “such  a  determination  itself 
may  be  viewed  [by  the  electorate]  as  a  sanction  by  the
State.”  Id., at 13. 

Although  the  threat  of  Commission  proceedings  is  a 
substantial  one,  we  need  not  decide  whether  that  threat 
standing  alone  gives  rise  to  an  Article  III  injury.    The 
burdensome  Commission  proceedings  here  are  backed  by
the additional threat of criminal prosecution.  We conclude 
that the combination of those two threats suffices to create 
an Article III injury under the circumstances of this case.
See Babbitt, supra, at 302, n. 13 (In addition to the threat 
of  criminal  sanctions,  “the  prospect  of  issuance  of  an  ad-
ministrative  cease-and-desist  order  or  a  court-ordered 
injunction  against  such  prohibited  conduct  provides  sub-
stantial  additional  support  for  the  conclusion  that  appel-
lees’ challenge . . . is justiciable” (citations omitted)).

  See  Brief  for  Respondents  26–27,  34. 

That conclusion holds true as to both SBA and COAST. 
Respondents,  relying  on  Younger  v.  Harris,  401  U.  S.  37 
(1971),  appear  to  suggest  that  COAST  lacks  standing 
because  it  refrained  from  actually  disseminating  its
planned speech in order to avoid Commission proceedings 
In 
of  its  own.
Younger,  the  plaintiff  had  been  indicted  for  distributing 
leaflets in violation of the California Criminal Syndicalism
Act.  When  he  challenged  the  constitutionality  of  the  law 
in  federal  court,  several  other  plaintiffs  intervened,  argu-
ing  that  their  own  speech  was  inhibited  by  Harris’  prose-
cution.  The  Court  concluded  that  only  the  plaintiff  had
standing  because  the  intervenors  “d[id]  not  claim  that 
they  ha[d]  ever  been  threatened  with  prosecution,  that  a
prosecution  [wa]s  likely,  or  even  that  a  prosecution  [wa]s 
remotely possible.”  401 U. S., at 42. 

That is not this case.  Unlike the intervenors in Younger,