Opinion ID: 3036695
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Overbreadth as Applied

Text: [10] Alaska’s definition of “electioneering communications” as applied to AKRTL’s proposed telephone message is not unconstitutionally overbroad as applied to AKRTL’s proposed telephone message. That proposed message refers to several issues concerning abortion, ascribes positions on those issues to the two gubernatorial candidates, and urges the listener to vote. Under any reasonable understanding of that message, the listener is being urged to vote for or against these two candidates based on the positions described in the message. Such a message is clearly regulable under both Buckley and McConnell. B. Disclosure Requirements AKRTL challenges three different kind of disclosures that a “nongroup entity” must make if it wishes to make an “electioneering communication.” First, the entity must register with APOC. Second, the entity must report expenditures. ALASKA RIGHT TO LIFE v. MILES 3023 Third, the entity must disclose that it is paying for its communications. AKRTL argues that these disclosure requirements violate its First Amendment rights. In part its argument depends on its contention — which we have just rejected — that the definition of “electioneering communication” is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. But in part its argument depends on a free-standing contention that because it is an “MCFL organization,” as described in Federal Election Commission v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, 479 U.S. 238 (1986) (“MCFL”), it is protected by the First Amendment from having to make such disclosures. We agree with AKRTL that it is a “nongroup entity” under Alaska law, and that such an entity is an MCFL organization. We also agree that MCFL organizations have greater protections under the First Amendment than traditional business corporations. However, we disagree with AKRTL’s contention that Alaska’s disclosure requirements violate the First Amendment rights of an MCFL organization. 1. MCFL Organizations We begin our analysis with a description of the Supreme Court’s holding in MCFL. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc. (“MCFL”), a nonprofit, nonstock corporation, brought a First Amendment challenge to a provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974, 2 U.S.C. § 441b. Section 441b imposed certain requirements on all corporations making expenditures “in connection with” any federal election. Among other things, § 441b required that campaign expenditures not come from money in the corporation’s general fund. Instead, such expenditures had to come from a separate, segregated fund. The money in that fund could come only from voluntary contributions “earmarked for that purpose by the donors.” Id. at 252. 3024 ALASKA RIGHT TO LIFE v. MILES In its majority opinion, the Court distinguished between a “traditional corporatio[n] organized for economic gain” and a corporation like MCFL. Id. at 259. In the Court’s view, a traditional corporation — an “organization that amass[es] great wealth in the marketplace,” id. at 263 — may be regulated to a greater extent. The Court defined a corporation like MCFL as having three critical features: First, it “was formed for the express purpose of promoting political ideas, and cannot engage in business activities.” Second, it has no shareholders or other affiliated persons with “a claim on assets or earnings.” Third, it “was not established as a business corporation or labor union, and it is its policy not to accept contributions from such organizations.” Id. at 263-64. The Court majority in MCFL construed § 441b to apply only to expenditures and contributions for “express advocacy.” Id. at 249. It then held that an organization meeting the above criteria could not constitutionally be required to maintain a separate, segregated fund containing money specifically solicited for campaign contributions. It wrote, “The limitation on solicitation in this case . . . means that nonmember corporations can hardly raise any funds at all to engage in political speech warranting the highest constitutional protection.” Id. at 260. The Court held that the limitation contained in § 441b could not be constitutionally applied to corporations meeting the MCFL criteria because it was too “broad [a] prophylactic rule.” Id. The Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) had advanced two primary justifications for applying § 441b to MCFL. First, the FEC had argued that MCFL-type organizations might use an individual’s money for purposes not supported by that individual. It contended that “even if contributors may be aware that a contribution to appellee will be used for political purposes in general, they may not wish such money to be used for electoral campaigns in particular.” Id. at 261. The Court majority responded by noting that this concern could be met “by means far more narrowly tailored and less burdenALASKA RIGHT TO LIFE v. MILES 3025 some,” simply by “requiring that contributors be informed that their money may be used for such a purpose.” Id. Second, the FEC had argued that if the requirements of § 441b were not applicable to MCFL, this “would open the door to massive undisclosed political spending by similar entities, and to their use as conduits for undisclosed spending by business corporations and unions.” Id. at 262. The majority responded by noting that whatever interest the government had in disclosure was satisfied by another, unchallenged provision of the statute under which MCFL was required to report information about independent expenditures “of as little as $200.” Id. The Court therefore concluded that the FEC had not advanced a “compelling state interest” sufficient to justify the application of § 441b to MCFL. Id. at 263 (emphasis in original). 2. Degree of Scrutiny The degree of scrutiny that we must apply to Alaska’s disclosure requirements for “nongroup entities” is somewhat unclear. In Buckley, the Court applied “exacting scrutiny” to various disclosure requirements in the Federal Election Campaign Act, including disclosures of contributions as small as $11 or $101 to minor-party and independent candidates, and disclosures “by those who make independent contributions and expenditures.” Buckley, 424 U.S. at 61-62; see also id. at 44-45 (“[T]he constitutionality of § 608(e)(1) turns on whether the governmental interests advanced in its support satisfy the exacting scrutiny applicable to limitations on core First Amendment rights of political expression.” (emphasis added)). “Exacting scrutiny,” in the words of Buckley, required that a “ ‘substantial relation’ ” be shown “between the governmental interest and the information required to be disclosed.” Id. at 64. This “exacting scrutiny” standard in Buckley was later characterized by the Court as requiring that a restriction on corporate political expenditures be “narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.” Austin, 494 U.S. at 657 (citing Buckley, 424 U.S. at 44-45). 3026 ALASKA RIGHT TO LIFE v. MILES In McConnell, the Court appears to have relaxed the degree of scrutiny. It explicitly applied a less exacting scrutiny to campaign contributions. It wrote: Because the electoral process is the very means through which a free society democratically translates political speech into concrete governmental action, contribution limits, like other measures aimed at protecting the integrity of the process, tangibly benefit public participation in political debate. For that reason, when reviewing Congress’ decision to enact contribution limits, there is no place for a strong presumption against constitutionality, of the sort often thought to accompany the words “strict scrutiny.” 540 U.S. at 137 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The Court was not as explicit about the appropriate standard of scrutiny with respect to disclosure requirements. However, in addressing extensive reporting requirements applicable to money gathered and disbursed to finance “electioneering communications” (as that term is defined in BCRA), the Court did not apply “strict scrutiny” or require a “compelling state interest.” See id. at 194-95 (describing disclosure requirements). Rather, the Court upheld the disclosure requirements as supported merely by “important state interests.” Id. at 196 (“We agree with the District Court that the important state interests that prompted the Buckley Court to uphold FECA’s disclosure requirements . . . apply in full to BCRA.” (emphasis added)). In the Court’s view, those “important state interests” “amply support[ed] application of [the] disclosure requirements to the entire range of ‘electioneering communications.’ ” Id. In our recent opinion in Heller, relying on McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995), we applied strict scrutiny in deciding a facial challenge to a state law requiring “persons paying for or ‘responsible for paying for’ the publiALASKA RIGHT TO LIFE v. MILES 3027 cation of ‘any material or information relating to an election candidate or any question on a ballot’ to identify their names and addresses on ‘any [published] printed or written matter or any photograph.’ ” 378 F.3d at 981-82. We noted that McConnell “casts new light” on some aspects of First Amendment protections of election-related speech, but we concluded that “nothing in McConnell undermines McIntyre’s understanding that proscribing the content of an election communication is a form of regulation of campaign activity subject to traditional strict scrutiny.” Id. at 987. [11] In some respects, the disclosure requirements in the case now before us resemble the disclosure requirements at issue in McConnell. In other respects — in particular the requirements of Alaska Stat. §§ 15.13.090 and 15.13.135(b) that the identity of a person paying for a “communication” be disclosed — they resemble those at issue in Heller. For purposes of this opinion we will assume without deciding that strict scrutiny applies to all of the challenged disclosure requirements, and that Alaska must advance a “compelling state interest” to justify them. Even under this standard, we hold that Alaska’s disclosure requirements are justified.