Opinion ID: 2817769
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Advocacy and the Voter Guide

Text: Campaign finance jurisprudence uses the terms “express advocacy” and “issue advocacy” to describe different types of election-related speech. The former encompasses “communications that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate,” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 80 (1976), while the latter are communications that seek to impact voter choice by focusing on specific issues. The Supreme Court has consistently held that disclosure requirements are not limited to “express advocacy” and that there is not a “rigid barrier between express advocacy and so-called issue advocacy.” McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93, 193 (2003). Any possibility that the Constitution limits the reach of disclosure to express advocacy or its functional equivalent is surely repudiated by Citizens United v. FEC, which stated: “The principal opinion in [FEC v. Wis. Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449, 469–76 (2007)] limited . . . restrictions on independent expenditures to express advocacy and its functional equivalent. Citizens United seeks to import a similar distinction into BCRA’s disclosure requirements. We reject this contention.” 558 U.S. 310, 368 (2010). The District Court concluded that the Act’s disclosure requirements could not constitutionally reach DSF’s Voter Guide because it was a “neutral communication” by a “neutral communicator.” Del. Strong Families, 34 F. Supp. 3d at 395. This formulation finds no support in the case law and is not one that we choose to adopt. The District Court found that DSF was a presumed neutral communicator by 8 virtue of its status as a § 501(c)(3) organization. Id. Similarly, DSF argues in its reply brief that, by virtue of this status, it is not permitted to engage in “any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.” 26 C.F.R. § 1.501(c)(3)-1(b)(3)(ii). The Act and § 501(c)(3), however, are separate and unrelated, and DSF has offered no compelling reason to defer to the § 501(c)(3) scheme in determining which communications require disclosure under the Act. Accordingly, we conclude that it is the conduct of an organization, rather than an organization’s status with the Internal Revenue Service, that determines whether it makes communications subject to the Act. The District Court noted that voter guides are typically intended to influence voters even though they may “lack[] words of express advocacy.” Del. Strong Families, 34 F. Supp. 3d at 394 n.19. By selecting issues on which to focus, a voter guide that mentions candidates by name and is distributed close to an election is, at a minimum, issue advocacy. Thus, the disclosure requirements can properly apply to DSF’s Voter Guide, which falls under the Act’s definition of “electioneering communication” by, among other things, mentioning candidates by name close to an election. See 15 Del. C. § 8002(10)(a); see also McConnell, 540 U.S. at 196 (endorsing the application of disclosure requirements to the “entire range” of similarly-defined “electioneering communications”). As long as the Act survives exacting scrutiny, disclosure of DSF’s donors is constitutionally permissible. Because it concluded that the Act impermissibly reached DSF’s Voter Guide as a general matter, the District Court did not analyze the Act’s specific requirements to determine whether it is sufficiently tailored to pass 9 constitutional muster. It is this analysis that we engage in next.