Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/13-193_omq2.pdf
Page Number: 17

Cite as:  573 U. S. ____ (2014) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

Brief for Petitioners 46, and respondents do not deny that
the  Commission  frequently  fields  complaints  alleging 
violations  of  the  false  statement  statute.  Cf.  Humani-
tarian Law Project, 561 U. S., at 16 (noting that there had 
been  numerous  prior  prosecutions  under  the  challenged
statute).  Moreover,  respondents  have  not  disavowed 
enforcement if petitioners make similar statements in the
future.  See Tr. of Oral Arg. 29–30; see also Humanitarian 
Law  Project,  supra,  at  16  (“The  Government  has  not  ar-
gued to this Court that plaintiffs will not be prosecuted if 
they do what they say they wish to do”).  In fact, the spec-
ter of enforcement is so substantial that the owner of the 
billboard refused to display SBA’s message after receiving 
a  letter  threatening  Commission  proceedings.    On  these 
facts, the prospect of future enforcement is far from “imag-
inary or speculative.”  Babbitt, supra, at 298. 

We  take  the  threatened  Commission  proceedings  into
account  because  administrative  action,  like  arrest  or 
prosecution, may give rise to harm sufficient to justify pre-
enforcement  review.    See  Ohio  Civil  Rights  Comm’n  v. 
Dayton  Christian  Schools,  Inc.,  477  U. S.  619,  625–626, 
n. 1 (1986) (“If a reasonable threat of prosecution creates a
ripe controversy, we fail to see how the actual filing of the
administrative  action  threatening  sanctions  in  this  case 
does not”).  The burdens that Commission proceedings can 
impose on electoral speech are of particular concern here. 
As the Ohio Attorney General himself notes, the “practical 
effect”  of  the  Ohio  false  statement  scheme  is “to  permit  a 
private  complainant  . . .  to  gain  a  campaign  advantage 
without  ever  having  to  prove  the  falsity  of  a  statement.” 
DeWine Brief 7.  “[C]omplainants may time their submis-
sions  to  achieve  maximum  disruption  of  their  political
opponents  while  calculating  that  an  ultimate  decision  on
the  merits  will  be  deferred  until  after  the  relevant  elec-
tion.”  Id., at 14–15.  Moreover, the target of a false state-
ment  complaint  may  be  forced  to  divert  significant  time