Opinion ID: 542009
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Goland's Standing to Bring this Constitutional Challenge.

Text: 28 The Supreme Court observed that potential abuse of Sec. 437h certification would be checked partly by the usual constitutional limitations on the jurisdiction of the federal courts: [a] party seeking to invoke Sec. 437h must have standing to raise the constitutional claim. California Medical Association v. Federal Election Commission, 453 U.S. 182, 193 n. 14, 101 S.Ct. 2712, 2720 n. 14, 69 L.Ed.2d 567 (1981) (CALMED ). 29 Because Goland used conduits to avoid detection of the true source of the contribution, the Commission characterizes Goland's acts as an effort to circumvent the law, rather than straightforwardly to challenge it. It argues that Goland lacks standing under Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855, 86 S.Ct. 1840, 16 L.Ed.2d 973 (1966), which held that one who is charged with conspiring to defraud the United States by trying to evade and circumvent a statutory scheme may not raise as a defense the unconstitutionality of that statute. According to the Commission, even if Goland obtained a favorable ruling in this civil case, it would not supply a valid defense to the criminal charges, and Goland thus fails to satisfy the redressability requirement for standing. 30 The government's argument is ingenious. However, ultimately it fails for several reasons. First, Dennis restricted the availability of certain defenses against criminal charges. The present case is civil--a declaratory judgment action under Sec. 437h. CALMED established that each route for testing the constitutionality of a FECA provision (an enforcement action and a parallel declaratory judgment action) may be pursued independently. The fact that a criminal action is pending does not preclude civil proceedings. Therefore, what might be a bar to the assertion of a defense in the criminal case does not prevent an individual from pursuing his declaratory judgment suit. In fact, the proper forum for evaluating the effect, if any, of Dennis on Mr. Goland's criminal defense would seem to be the criminal proceeding. Some doubt exists as to the vitality of the Dennis rule, but we need not decide that here. This case is not like Dennis. The petitioners in Dennis were indicted for violating 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371 10 by conspiring to obtain fraudulently NLRB services for the union by filing false non-Communist affidavits. They sought to have their convictions set aside on the ground that the law prohibiting Communist Party members from holding office in a labor union was unconstitutional. The Court held that a claim of unconstitutionality will not be heard to excuse a voluntary, deliberate and calculated course of fraud and deceit. Id. at 867, 86 S.Ct. at 1847. In other words, what the Dennis defendants were prosecuted for were their conspiratorial false statements to the government. Were Goland's crimes limited to charges of violating 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001 and 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371 (statutes criminalizing conspiracies to defraud the government and causing false statements to the government) he could not collaterally raise the constitutionality of FECA. Bryson v. United States, 396 U.S. 64, 90 S.Ct. 355, 24 L.Ed.2d 264 (1969) (unconstitutionality of statute which required union officers to file non-communist affidavits is irrelevant to validity of conviction for filing false statement in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001); United States v. Knox, 396 U.S. 77, 90 S.Ct. 363, 24 L.Ed.2d 275 (1969) (constitutionality of government's demand for information on wagering registration form is irrelevant to charge of filing false statements with government); United States v. Mandujano, 425 U.S. 564, 579, 96 S.Ct. 1768, 1778, 48 L.Ed.2d 212 (1976) (fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination does not require suppression of false statement in perjury prosecution); Rodriguez v. Seamans, 463 F.2d 837 (D.C.Cir.1972) (federal employee was subject to discharge for making false statements on security clearance application requiring information as to past Communist associations regardless of constitutionality of questions posed); United States v. Sabatino, 485 F.2d 540 (2d Cir.1973) (conviction for filing false statements to the government not subject to challenge on ground of unconstitutionality of the requirement). 31 This limitation on the capacity of a criminal defendant to challenge the constitutionality of a statute is sensible when so confined. If, for example, a local ordinance prevents picketing, and a picketer assaults an officer while being arrested, the unconstitutionality of the picketing ordinance should not be available as a defense to a charge of resisting arrest. Similarly, one may not be allowed to defend against a charge of lying to the government by claiming that one should not have been forced to divulge certain information. One should, however, be able to raise the unconstitutionality of the statute under which one is charged as a defense to a charge of having violated it. To continue the example, the picketer would be permitted to bring a constitutional challenge against the law that prohibits resisting arrest. This general principle has special force in the context of a first amendment challenge, where standing restrictions are relaxed in certain cases to avoid chilling protected expression. As Judge Wright observed in Rodriguez, ... if the First Amendment protected only the forthright, there would be no chilling effect doctrine. 463 F.2d at 852. And as Goland points out, one of the rights he seeks to vindicate is the ability to make anonymous donations. The very conduct that provides the factual basis for this challenge should not disqualify the challenge. 32 To the extent the government raises the bar of Dennis as affecting the redressability requirement, we note that Dennis, at most, might block Goland's standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Act in his defense of the 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371 and Sec. 1001 charges; arguably, even if he were to obtain a favorable ruling, that would not give him relief in the criminal action charging him with violations of those two statutes. Goland, however, also was charged with violating the substantive provision of FECA. Certainly he could challenge the constitutionality of the substantive FECA law he was charged with violating, no matter how he chose to violate it (i.e. by circumvention or by a straightforward refusal to follow its requirements). A successful constitutional challenge to FECA provisions would give at least partial redress to Goland. 33 Finally, to extend the Dennis rule to deny standing in a declaratory judgment action where Congress has accorded standing as broad as Article III would permit runs entirely counter to the pronouncements of the Court in CALMED, 453 U.S. 182, 101 S.Ct. 2712. Noting that usual standing restraints would prevent overuse of Sec. 437h, the Court specifically declined to limit declaratory judgment actions even where a speedy test of the constitutionality of a FECA provision was available in ongoing criminal proceedings. Although it is admittedly very untidy to have the same issue presented at the same time in two forums, the holding of the CALMED Court expressly permits it. 34 The United States and the Commission challenge Goland's standing on the additional ground that his claim involves a hypothetical application of FECA. 11 According to the Commission, although Goland purports to challenge the constitutionality of applying contribution limits to anonymous contributions, the indictment does not charge Goland with making an anonymous contribution, but rather with seeking to avoid detection of his excessive contribution by using conduits so that his contribution would be attributed to others. His contribution was not anonymous; it was secret. This logic is unpersuasive. Taking Goland at his word, he would not have used individuals as conduits if the law did not prohibit making anonymous contributions. Under FECA's reporting and disclosure requirements, to bypass the law in effect required violating it. We accept the well established limitation on federal court jurisdiction of refusing to anticipate constitutional questions. The questions posed by Appellant's suit however, are far from theoretical or hypothetical. 35 The government additionally argues that Goland's constitutional challenge is hypothetical because Goland does not admit that the allegations in the criminal indictment are true. There is no merit to this argument. If the complexity introduced by the possibility of concurrent civil and criminal proceedings is set aside for the moment, it becomes clear that Goland would not need to admit the factual allegations in the indictment (e.g., that it was he who sent a check for $120,000) in order to challenge the constitutionality of the statute. In defending against a criminal enforcement action, Goland could both deny that he sent the check and argue that even if the court finds that he did send the check, he nonetheless should not be convicted because the statute is unconstitutional. Admitting for the sake of argument the truth of the government's factual allegations simply clears the way for asserting the affirmative defense of unconstitutionality. Goland does not have to wait until he has been found to have done the acts charged in the indictment to assert the affirmative defense of unconstitutionality. 36 The only difference in the present case is that Goland is asserting his second argument in the context of a civil suit. It may be awkward to have such simultaneous proceedings. But this is precisely what the Supreme Court found to be the statutory scheme. In CALMED, 453 U.S. 182, 101 S.Ct. 2712, 69 L.Ed.2d 567 (1981) the Court was reviewing a Ninth Circuit opinion--an appeal from a civil suit. (As the Court noted, in the meantime, the district court entered a judgment against the defendants in the enforcement action. Thus, the procedural posture of CALMED was similar to Goland : the civil constitutional challenge was heard on appeal and decided before the enforcement action was resolved.) The Court rejected the Commission's standing challenge by noting that even if the PAC organizations did not have Sec. 473h standing, the individual members of the PACs had a sufficiently concrete stake in this controversy to establish standing to raise the constitutional claims at issue here. CALMED at 187, n. 6, 101 S.Ct. at 2717, n. 6. The Court went on to reject the Commission's other jurisdictional challenge--that civil constitutional challenges may not be maintained simultaneously with enforcement proceedings--with the following: 37 Although Congress thus established two avenues for judicial review of constitutional questions arising under the Act, it failed to provide any mechanism for coordinating cases in which the same constitutional issues are raised by the same parties in both a Sec. 473h declaratory judgment action and a Sec. 437g enforcement proceeding.... Although we agree with the Commission that the judicial review provisions of the Act are scarcely a blueprint for efficient litigation, we decline to construe Sec. 473h in the manner suggested by the Commission. 38 Thus, in CALMED the Court held that FECA provides for constitutional challenges to be brought in simultaneous criminal and civil proceedings. There is nothing in this system of dual challenges that diminishes the otherwise available options for an individual who has been charged with violating a FECA provision. Indeed the dual system would be meaningless if the challenger in the civil proceeding had to stipulate to the truth of the factual allegations involved in the enforcement proceeding; if that requirement were imposed, there would never be any simultaneous criminal and civil FECA proceedings. 39 Finally, Goland does not have to be convicted of violating FECA in order to have a real and immediate stake in the determination of the constitutionality of the provisions he is charged with violating. Especially in light of the fact that FECA grants standing to persons who are eligible voters. 12 Goland has been indicted under FECA. His challenge is anything but hypothetical. He should not have to surrender his right to a trial in order to bring a simultaneous civil challenge, which the Supreme Court has found FECA provides. 40 We reject the contention that Goland lacks standing to bring this suit. Goland satisfies the traditional standing criteria: he has alleged an actual or threatened injury; that injury was caused by the challenged act; and that injury is apt to be redressed by a favorable decision. See Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984); Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 454 U.S. 464, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982). 13 41