Source: http://openjurist.org/110/f3d/1049
Timestamp: 2013-12-19 04:48:37
Document Index: 241362247

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 441', '§ 2412', '§ 2412', '§ 608', '§ 608', '§ 441']

110 F3d 1049 Federal Election Commission v. Christian Action Network Incorporated | OpenJurist
110 F. 3d 1049 - Federal Election Commission v. Christian Action Network Incorporated	Home110 f3d 1049 federal election commission v. christian action network incorporated
110 F3d 1049 Federal Election Commission v. Christian Action Network Incorporated 110 F.3d 1049
FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, Plaintiff-Appellant,v.CHRISTIAN ACTION NETWORK, INCORPORATED; Martin Mawyer,Defendants-Appellees.Democratic National Committee; American Civil LibertiesUnion of Virginia, Amici Curiae.
No. 95-2600.
Argued Nov. 29, 1996.Decided April 7, 1997.
Lawrence M. Noble, General Counsel, Richard B. Bader, Associate General Counsel, David Brett Kolker, Federal Election Commission, Washington, D.C., for Plaintiff-Appellant. David William T. Carroll, II, Columbus, OH; Frank M. Northam, Webster, Chamberlain & Bean, Washington, D.C., for Appellees. Stephen B. Pershing, Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Virginia, Richmond, VA, for Amicus Curiae ACLU. Joseph E. Sandler, General Counsel, Democratic National Committee, Washington, D.C.; Donald B. Verrilli, Paul M. Smith, Washington, D.C.; Daniel H. Bromberg, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Committee.
Before RUSSELL and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges, and CHAPMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.
Fees and other expenses awarded and case remanded by published opinion. Judge LUTTIG wrote the opinion, in which Judge RUSSELL and Senior Judge CHAPMAN joined.OPINION
The Supreme Court of the United States held in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976), and reaffirmed in FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens For Life, Inc., 479 U.S. 238, 107 S.Ct. 616, 93 L.Ed.2d 539 (1986), that corporate expenditures for political communications violate 2 U.S.C. § 441b(a) only if the communications employ "explicit words," "express words," or "language" advocating the election or defeat of a specifically identified candidate for public office. In the underlying litigation, the Federal Election Commission advanced the position that the Christian Action Network violated section 441b(a) through corporate expenditures for a commercial in which the following text was read by a narrator:
Bill Clinton's vision for America includes job quotas for homosexuals, giving homosexuals special civil rights, allowing homosexuals in the armed forces. Al Gore supports homosexual couples' adopting children and becoming foster parents. Is this your vision for a better America? For more information on traditional family values, contact the Christian Action Network.
Although conceding that the Christian Action Network's advertisements did not employ "explicit words," "express words," or "language" advocating the election or defeat of a particular candidate for public office, the FEC nonetheless contended that the Network's expenditures for these advertisements violated section 441b(a) because the advertisements "unmistakably" "expressly advocated" the defeat of then-Governor Clinton in the presidential election of 1992, through the superimposition of selected imagery, film footage, and music, over the nonprescriptive background language.
On the authority of Buckley v. Valeo and FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens For Life ("MCFL "), the district court dismissed the FEC's action against the Network for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, holding that, as "issue advocacy intended to inform the public about political issues germane to the 1992 presidential election," the advertisements were "fully protected as 'political speech' under the First Amendment." Federal Election Commission v. Christian Action Network, 894 F.Supp. 946, 948 (W.D.Va.1995). In so holding, the district court refused the FEC's invitation to examine the "meaning behind the images" which appear in the Network's television commercial.1 Id. at 958. We, in turn, summarily affirmed on the reasoning of the district court, characterizing the interpretation advanced by the Commission as "unsupportable." Federal Election Commission v. Christian Action Network, 92 F.3d 1178, 1996 WL 431996 (4th Cir.1996) (per curiam) (adopting district court opinion, 894 F.Supp. at 959). Before us now is a request by the Network, pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2412, for fees and costs incurred in connection with the FEC's prosecution and appeal of this matter. Because the position taken by the FEC in this litigation was foreclosed by clear, well-established Supreme Court caselaw, and it is apparent from the Commission's selective quotation from and citation to those authorities that the agency was so aware, we conclude that the Commission's position, if not assumed in bad faith, was at least not "substantially justified" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A), and therefore that the Christian Action Network is entitled to the requested fees and costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act.2I.
In Buckley v. Valeo, in order to eliminate what otherwise would have been the unconstitutional overbreadth of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended in 1974, the Supreme Court interpreted the statutory phrase "relative to," see 18 U.S.C. § 608(e)(1) (repealed in 1976),3 so that the section would only prohibit corporate expenditures for "express advocacy"--"communications that include explicit words of advocacy of election or defeat of a candidate," id. at 43, 96 S.Ct. at 646 (emphasis added), or "communications containing express words of advocacy of election or defeat," id. at 44 n. 52, 96 S.Ct. at 647 n. 52 (emphasis added). See also id. at 80 n. 108, 96 S.Ct. at 664 n. 108. That is, the Court held that the Federal Election Campaign Act could be applied consistently with the First Amendment only if it were limited to expenditures for communications that literally include words which in and of themselves advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. The Court even provided an illustrative list of the kinds of "express words of advocacy" the use of which in corporately-funded communications could violate section 608(e)(1):
This construction [of section 608(e)(1) ] would restrict the application of [the provision] to communications containing express words of advocacy of election or defeat, such as "vote for," "elect," "support," "cast your ballot for," "Smith for Congress," "vote against," "defeat," "reject."
Id. at 44 n. 52, 96 S.Ct. at 647 n. 52.
The Court adopted the bright-line limitation that it did in Buckley in order to protect our cherished right to political speech free from government censorship. Recognizing that "the distinction between discussions of issues and candidates [on the one hand] and advocacy of election or defeat of candidates [on the other] may often dissolve in practical application," id. at 42, 96 S.Ct. at 646, the Court concluded, plain and simple, that absent the bright-line limitation, the distinction between issue discussion (in the context of electoral politics) and candidate advocacy would be sufficiently indistinct that the right of citizens to engage in the vigorous discussion of issues of public interest without fear of official reprisal would be intolerably chilled. Thus, the Court reasoned:
[W]hether words intended and designed to fall short of invitation would miss that mark is a question both of intent and of effect. No speaker, in such circumstances, safely could assume that anything he might say upon the general subject would not be understood by some as an invitation. In short, the supposedly clear-cut distinction between discussion, laudation, general advocacy, and solicitation puts the speaker in these circumstances wholly at the mercy of the varied understanding of his hearers and consequently of whatever inference may be drawn as to his intent and meaning.
Id. at 43, 96 S.Ct. at 646 (quoting Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 535, 65 S.Ct. 315, 325, 89 L.Ed. 430 (1945)). The Court opted for the clear, categorical limitation, that only expenditures for communications using explicit words of candidate advocacy are prohibited, so that citizen participants in the political processes would not have their core First Amendment rights to political speech burdened by apprehensions that their advocacy of issues might later be interpreted by the government as, instead, advocacy of election result. See Buckley at 43, 96 S.Ct. at 646 ("The constitutional deficiencies described in Thomas v. Collins can be avoided only by reading § 608(e)(1) as limited to communications that include explicit words of advocacy of election or defeat of a candidate.") (emphasis added). The Court could have drawn the line between permissible and impermissible expenditures differently, but a different line would have come at the cost of expanded regulatory authority in a sphere where government regulation, if it is to be permitted at all, must be viewed with the utmost suspicion--a cost the Court had no difficulty concluding was too high for the incremental additional "benefits" that would be obtained by vesting broader power in the government, and in particular in the FEC.
The Court's commitment to a limited role for the government in the regulation of corporate political expenditures, and specifically its commitment to an interpretation of the Constitution that permits the prohibition only of corporate political communications that employ express words of advocacy, was reaffirmed a full decade after Buckley, in MCFL. There, the Court interpreted section 441b of the Federal Election Campaign Act, 2 U.S.C. § 441b(a), "the more intrusive provision" of the Act, see MCFL, 479 U.S. at 249, 107 S.Ct. at 623, which prohibits corporations from using treasury funds to make any "contribution or expenditure in connection with" any federal election. Observing that Buckley's rationale, that the divide between discussion of issues and candidates and election advocacy is so obscure as to require a prophylactic definition in order to give the widest berth to First Amendment freedoms, was equally applicable to expenditures under section 441b(a), the Court unanimously engrafted onto section 441b(a) Buckley's "express advocacy" limitation. Citing to footnote 52 in Buckley, the Court reiterated its holding that "a finding of 'express advocacy' depend[s] upon the use of language such as 'vote for,' 'elect,' 'support,' etc." Id. (quoting Buckley, 424 U.S. at 44 n. 52, 96 S.Ct. at 647 n. 52) (emphasis added). And, consistent with its reaffirmation of Buckley's "explicit words of advocacy" standard, the Court concluded that "[j]ust such an exhortation" appeared in the voter guides at issue in that case, which identified particular pro-life candidates by name and with photographs and urged voters to vote for those candidates through the "explicit directive" "VOTE PRO-LIFE." Id. at 243, 249, 107 S.Ct. at 620, 623.
That the Court in Buckley and MCFL unambiguously limited the Federal Election Commission's regulatory authority over corporate expenditures to those for communications that use explicit words of advocacy has been uniformly recognized by the lower courts.
In one of the first appellate cases following Buckley, the Second Circuit flatly rejected the FEC's definition of "express advocacy." FEC v. Central Long Island Tax Reform Immediately Committee, 616 F.2d 45 (2nd Cir.1980) (en banc ) ("CLITRIM"). The Second Circuit found the FEC's position, which, like that urged by the FEC in this case, would have allowed the FEC to regulate "implied" communications that "encourag[ed]" election or defeat, to be "totally meritless." Id. at 53. Admonishing that the Supreme Court's interpretations of sections 434(e) and 441d "clearly establish that, contrary to the position of the FEC, the words 'expressly advocating' mean exactly what they say," the court warned that the FEC's position would effectively "nullify" the Supreme Court's decision in Buckley. Id.
Seven years later, and less than a month following the Court's decision in MCFL, the Ninth Circuit in FEC v. Furgatch, 807 F.2d 857 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 850, 108 S.Ct. 151, 98 L.Ed.2d 106 (1987), could not have been clearer that it, too, shared this understanding of the Court's decision in Buckley.4 Although the court declined to "strictly limit" express advocacy to the "magic words" of Buckley's footnote 52 because that footnote's list does "not exhaust the capacity of the English language to expressly advocate election or defeat of a candidate," id. at 862-63, the entire premise of the court's analysis was that words of advocacy such as those recited in footnote 52 were required to support Commission jurisdiction over a given corporate expenditure. See, e.g., FEC Brief in Opposition to Certiorari in Furgatch at 4 (explaining that the Ninth Circuit's opinion "emphasize[s] that the statute was narrowly limited to communications containing language 'susceptible of no other reasonable interpretation but as an exhortation to vote for or against a specific candidate.' " (emphasis added)). In fact, it is only because the court believed that the word combinations that could constitute express advocacy were many that it rejected the suggestion that "the 'express advocacy' language of Buckley ... [drew] a bright and unambiguous line," Furgatch, 807 F.2d at 861.
The court explained that individual words or sentences of the message cannot be considered in isolation, but, rather, must be considered together with the other words and sentences that appear in the communication, in determining whether the message is one of election advocacy:
A proper understanding of the speaker's message can best be obtained by considering speech as a whole. Comprehension often requires inferences from the relation of one part of speech to another. The entirety may give a clear impression that is never succinctly stated in a single phrase or sentence. Similarly, a stray comment viewed in isolation may suggest an idea that is only peripheral to the primary purpose of speech as a whole. Furgatch would have us reject intra-textual interpretation and construe each part of speech independently, requiring express advocacy from specific phrases rather than from speech in its entirety.
We reject the suggestion that we isolate each sentence and act as if it bears no relation to its neighbors. This is not to say that we will not examine each sentence in an effort to understand the whole. We only recognize that the whole consists of its parts in relation to each other.
Id. at 863. Then, although noting how "[w]ords derive their meaning from what the speaker intends and what the reader understands," the court declined to place too much importance on intent because "to fathom [the speaker's] mental state would distract [the court] unnecessarily from the speech itself." Id. And, finally, although the court refused to foreclose resort to contextual considerations external to the words themselves, it explained that external context must necessarily be an "ancillary" consideration because it is "peripheral to the words themselves," id., and it pointedly noted that such "context cannot supply a meaning that is incompatible with, or simply unrelated to, the clear import of the words," id. at 864.
Having established that the emphasis must always be on the literal words of the communication, with little if any weight accorded external contextual factors, the court proceeded to outline what it considered to be "a more comprehensive approach to the delimitation of 'express advocacy.' " Id. at 862. In so doing, the court repeatedly emphasized that the message of candidate advocacy must appear in the speech, in the words, of the communication if the expenditure of corporate funds for that communication is to be prohibited:
We conclude that speech need not include any of the words listed in Buckley to be express advocacy under the Act, but it [the speech] must, when read as a whole, and with limited reference to external events, be susceptible of no other reasonable interpretation but as an exhortation to vote for or against a specific candidate.
Id. at 864 (emphases added). The court's almost exclusive focus on "speech," and specifically "speech" defined as the literal words or text of the communication, could not have been any clearer, as the following passage in explanation of its conclusion confirms:
This standard can be broken into three main components. First, even if it is not presented in the clearest, most explicit language, speech is "express" for present purposes if its message is unmistakable and unambiguous, suggestive of only one plausible meaning. Second, speech may only be termed "advocacy" if it presents a clear plea for action, and thus speech that is merely informative is not covered by the Act. Finally, it must be clear what action is advocated. Speech cannot be "express advocacy of the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate" when reasonable minds could differ as to whether it encourages a vote for or against a candidate or encourages the reader to take some other kind of action.
We emphasize that if any reasonable alternative reading of speech can be suggested, it cannot be express advocacy subject to the Act's disclosure requirements.
Id. (emphases added).5
Indeed, the simple holding of Furgatch was that, in those instances where political communications do include an explicit directive to voters to take some course of action, but that course of action is unclear, "context"--including the timing of the communication in relation to the events of the day--may be considered in determining whether the action urged is the election or defeat of a particular candidate for public office. See id. at 865 ("We hold ... that this failure to state with specificity the action required does not remove political speech from the coverage of the Campaign Act when it is clearly the kind of advocacy of the defeat of an identified candidate that Congress intended to regulate."). As the FEC described Furgatch in opposing a grant of certiorari in that case:
The court of appeals' assessment of Mr. Furgatch's advertisement under [the "express advocacy"] standard turns upon the particular facts of this case, and thus does not necessarily indicate how courts will assess other communications in other circumstances. Such a fact-dependent determination does not warrant plenary review by this Court, particularly since the Court discussed the proper application of the express advocacy standard only last Term in FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc. [479 U.S. at 248-50] 107 S.Ct. at 623, and applied it in a manner consistent with that of the court of appeals in this case.
FEC Opposition to Certiorari in Furgatch at 7.
In emphasis of the language of the communication, the court's analysis focused on the words of the advertisement at issue in the case, "DON'T LET HIM DO IT," and, specifically, on the words "DON'T LET HIM." Furgatch, 807 F.2d at 864; see also FEC Opposition to Certiorari in Furgatch at 4 ("The court found that the language of Mr. Furgatch's advertisement left 'no doubt that the ad asks the public to vote against Carter.' " (emphasis added)). The court characterized these words as "simple and direct" words of "command," which " 'expressly advocate[d]' action of some kind." Furgatch, 807 F.2d at 864. Although acknowledging that whether the words constituted express advocacy was a "very close call," id. at 861, the court ultimately held that "[r]easonable minds could not dispute that [the] advertis