Opinion ID: 867640
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Development of factual record

Text: The factual record here is not sufficiently developed to review SBA List’s claims. Ohio has not applied its law to SBA List’s speech. The Commission has not found that SBA List violated the false-statement law. And no prosecutor has taken any action upon any Commission referral. SBA List says it seeks to engage in substantially similar speech in the future. Allowing such a case to proceed would require us to guess about the content and veracity of SBA List’s as-yet unarticulated statement, the chance an as-yet unidentified candidate against whom it is directed will file a Commission complaint, and the odds that the Commission will conclude the statement violates Ohio law. A court cannot decide SBA List’s claims on this threadbare record without engaging in precisely the kind of conjecture that the ripeness doctrine bars. - 13 - Susan B. Anthony List, et al v. Driehaus Nos. 11-3894/3925 SBA List counters that none of these details are relevant because the mere possibility that it ultimately could be sued for engaging in protected speech is factually sufficient to make this matter ripe. That is not correct. SBA List’s challenge to the applicability of a statutory scheme to its conduct would benefit from knowing what the scheme prohibits and what it permits. Ammex, Inc. v. Cox, 351 F.3d 697, 707–08 (6th Cir. 2003). Some cases surely involve pure questions of law in which “[n]o factual development can change what the statute bans and what it protects.” Macaw, 132 F.3d at 291. But this is not one of them. And even if SBA List presented a “purely legal question,” it “remains a purely speculative legal question . . . that may be answered differently in different settings.” Warshak, 532 F.3d at 528. The current factual record is insufficient to permit review.