Opinion ID: 159097
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Registration Fee

Text: 14 The Utah Act also requires fundraising consultants to pay an annual registration fee. The fee imposed must be reasonable, fair and reflect the cost of services provided. Utah Code Ann. 63-38-3.2(2)(a) (Supp. 1999); Utah Code Ann. 13-22-9(1)(a) (Supp. 1999). Prior to fiscal year 1997, the state assessed a fee of $150. The Utah Division of Consumer Protection raised the fee to $250 for fiscal year 1997 and thereafter. In an affidavit filed with the district court, Director Giani stated that the Division raised the fee to defray increased regulatory costs caused by a significant jump in applications. 15 Arguing that the $250 fee is excessive, American Target relies almost exclusively upon Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943). In Murdock, the Supreme Court struck a city ordinance that, as applied, required Jehovah's Witnesses to pay a license tax to engage in door-to-door solicitation. The Court declared that [f]reedom of speech . . . [should be] available to all, not merely to those who can pay their own way. Id. at 111. The Court recognized some limits to this principle, however. Cataloguing the failings of the license tax at issue, the Court observed that it was not a nominal fee imposed as a regulatory measure to defray the expenses of policing the activities in question. Id. at 113-14. The Court observed that [t]he constitutional difference between such a regulatory measure and a tax on the exercise of a federal right has long been recognized. Id. at 115 n.8. 16 Murdock does not mean that an invalid fee can be saved if it is nominal, or that only nominal charges are constitutionally permissible. Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123, 137 (1992). Rather, a regulatory fee may be constitutional only if it serves a legitimate state interest. Id. The state of Utah, through the Giani affidavit, adequately connects the $250 regulatory fee to the state's recognized interest in protecting its citizenry from fraud. The fee does no more than defray reasonable administration costs. We therefore find the fee narrowly tailored to the identified interest.