Opinion ID: 2494205
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Use of Context in Definition of Expressly Advocate

Text: NOM's final vagueness argument is somewhat distinct from the preceding ones. While NOM's claim focuses on the phrase expressly advocate in the independent expenditure statute, [45] NOM does not contend that the phrase itself is unconstitutionally vague. Instead, NOM argues that Maine's definition of expressly advocate, set forth in regulations promulgated by the Commission, renders the term vague because it invites reliance on a communication's context and employs a purportedly unconstitutional appeal-to-vote formulation for determining what qualifies as express advocacy. Specifically, the regulations provide that a communication will be considered to expressly advocate when it employs phrases that in context can have no other reasonable meaning than to urge the election or defeat of one or more clearly identified candidate(s), such as posters, bumper stickers, advertisements, etc. which say `Pick Berry,' `Harris in 2000,' `Murphy/Stevens' or `Canavan!' XX-XXX-XXX Me.Code R. § 10(2)(B). [46] As we explain, NOM's arguments read far too much into a limited line of Supreme Court precedents, and provide no basis for concluding that Maine's regulations are unconstitutionally vague. NOM's arguments have their roots in the recent trio of Supreme Court cases addressing the constitutionality of the federal prohibition of independent expenditures by corporations and unions for electioneering communicationsthose made shortly before a primary or general election that clearly identify a candidate for federal office. The trio began with McConnell, in which the Court upheld the electioneering provision against a facial overbreadth challenge. In so doing, the Court found unavailing the contention that the provision would regulate a substantial amount of issue advocacy, noting that the argument fail[ed] to the extent that the issue ads broadcast during the [relevant period] are the functional equivalent of express advocacy. McConnell, 540 U.S. at 206, 124 S.Ct. 619. This conditional assertion was put to the test several years later in Wisconsin Right to Life, when the Court, entertaining an as-applied challenge to the electioneering provision, considered whether several specific advertisements qualified as the functional equivalent of express advocacy. The Court concluded they did not, and accordingly held the provision unconstitutional in its application. Along the way, the principal opinion made two points relevant to NOM's arguments here. First, it suggested that an advertisement would qualify as the functional equivalent of express advocacy, and thereby could be regulated without triggering overbreadth concerns, only when it is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate. [47] Wis. Right to Life, 551 U.S. at 469-70, 127 S.Ct. 2652. NOM refers to this formulation as the appeal-to-vote test. Second, the Court criticized efforts to use the advertisements' context to determine whether they qualified as the `functional equivalent' of express advocacy, noting that contextual factors of the sort invoked [there] should seldom play a significant role in the inquiry. Id. at 473-74, 127 S.Ct. 2652. Most recently, the Court concluded in Citizens United that Congress could not limit the campaign-related speech of corporations and unions and thus held the electioneering provision unconstitutional, overturning McConnell. Citizens United provides the launching point for NOM's first argument that Maine's definition of expressly advocate is vague. NOM contneds that Citizens United eliminated the appeal-to-vote test as a constitutional limit on government power, and reads into this an implicit holding that the test was unconstitutionally vague. NOM's reading finds no support in the text of Citizens United, though we agree with NOM that, in striking down the federal electioneering expenditure statute, Citizens United eliminated the context in which the appeal-to-vote test has had any significance. [48] It is a large and unsubstantiated jump, however, to read Citizens United as casting doubt on the constitutionality of any statute or regulation using language similar to the appeal-to-vote test to define the scope of its coverage. The basis for Citizens United's holding on the constitutionality of the electioneering expenditure statute had nothing to do with the appeal-to-vote, test or the divide between express and issue advocacy. Instead, the decision turned on a reconsideration of prior case law holding that a corporation's political speech may be subjected to greater regulation than an individual's. See Citizens United, 130 S.Ct. at 886. The opinion offered no view on the clarity of the appeal-to-vote test. In fact, the Court itself relied on the appeal-to-vote test in disposing of a threshold argument that the appeal should be resolved on narrower, as-applied grounds. See id. at 889-90 (applying appeal-to-vote test in determining that advertisements at issue were the functional equivalent of express advocacy). We find similarly misguided NOM's argument that the definition of expressly advocate is vague due to the regulation's reference to consideration of an advertisement's words in context. NOM misinterprets Wisconsin Right to Life in suggesting that the principal opinion barred all consideration of context to determine whether an advertisement was the functional equivalent of express advocacy. To the contrary, the opinion explicitly acknowledges that [c]ourts need not ignore basic background information that may be necessary to put an ad in context. Wis. Right to Life, 551 U.S. at 474, 127 S.Ct. 2652. [49] It is apparent from the examples provided by the regulation here`Pick Berry,' `Harris in 2000,' `Murphy/Stevens' or `Canavan!'that knowing that Berry is a candidate to be picked on the ballot, that 2000 is an election where Harris should win, etc., Nat'l Org. for Marriage, 723 F.Supp.2d at 266, is precisely the sort of basic background information that may be consulted in the express advocacy determination. In any event, we find the regulation's definition of expressly advocate, as a whole, to be sufficiently clear to satisfy due process. The definition offers abundant examples (fourteen in all) of the sorts of language that will constitute express advocacy, and, as we have noted before, [t]he existence of clear examples of conduct covered by a law may . . . help to insulate the law against an accusation of vagueness. URI Student Senate, 631 F.3d at 14; see also Hotel & Motel Ass'n v. City of Oakland, 344 F.3d 959, 972-73 (9th Cir.2003) (finding ordinance provided sufficient notice where it listed no less than nineteen specific examples of the types of conduct to which th[e] provision applie[d]). Moreover, the phrase set forth in the regulationcan have no other reasonable meaning than to urge the election or defeat of one or more clearly identified candidate(s)is certainly as clear, if not more so, as words such as support and promote that the Supreme Court has held non-vague. See McConnell, 540 U.S. at 170 n. 64, 124 S.Ct. 619; see also Wis. Right to Life, 551 U.S. at 474 n. 7, 127 S.Ct. 2652 (explaining that the appeal-to-vote formulation meets the imperative for clarity in regulation of political speech). We therefore reject NOM's arguments that the regulation's definition of the phrase expressly advocate is unconstitutionally vague.