Opinion ID: 6498151
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Canyon Ferry

Text: We considered an earlier version of Montana’s election disclosure regime against a vagueness challenge in Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church of East Helena, Inc. v. Unsworth, 556 F.3d 1021 (9th Cir. 2009). At that time, Montana did not exempt de minimis acts or expenditures less than $250 from its disclosure requirements. Id. at 1026–27. In Canyon Ferry, a church allowed a member to use the church’s photocopy machine to make fewer than 50 copies of the petition for a state ballot initiative. Id. at 1024. The church placed the ballot petitions in its foyer, and at a regularly scheduled Sunday evening service the pastor encouraged the congregation to sign the petitions. Id. at 1024–25. The Commissioner of Political Practices found that the church and its pastor were a political committee and that the committee had failed to meet its reporting obligations. Id. at 1025. The Commissioner found that the pastor was not a volunteer. Id. The church and the pastor brought suit under § 1983, arguing that Montana’s election disclosure law is unconstitutionally vague both on its face and as applied. Id. They did not challenge, and we did not address, the Commissioner’s conclusion that the pastor was not a volunteer. Rather, they challenged the Commissioner’s conclusion that the church and pastor had made expenditures within the meaning of the statute. Id. at 1028. We upheld the statute’s definition of expenditures against a facial vagueness challenge: “We have no doubt that the Montana regulation poses no vagueness problem in the ‘vast majority of its intended applications.’” Id. (quoting Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703, 733 (2000)). We held that Montana’s disclosure regulation was unconstitutionally vague as applied to the placement of the ballot petitions in BUTCHER V. KNUDSEN 41 the church’s foyer, and to the pastor’s exhortation to sign the petition during a sermon. Id. at 1029–30. But we held that it was not unconstitutionally vague as applied to the member’s use of the church’s photocopy machine. 1 Id. at 1030. After Canyon Ferry, Montana amended its definition of an “expenditure” that triggers the creation of a political committee. As relevant here, Montana added a $250 threshold and an exception for de minimis acts. See Mont. Code Ann. § 13-1-101(32)(d) (“A political committee is not formed when a combination of two or more individuals or a person other than an individual makes an election communication, an electioneering communication, or an independent expenditure of $250 or less.”); id. § 13-1- 101(11) (“‘De minimis act’ means an action, contribution, or expenditure that is so small that it does not trigger registration, reporting, disclaimer, or disclosure obligations . . . or warrant enforcement as a campaign practices violation . . . .”). Pursuant to Mont. Code Ann. § 13-37-114, the Commissioner promulgated the interpretive Administrative Rule quoted above.