Opinion ID: 1202753
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Point 4. Overbreadth

Text: The right to act in concert with others for political purposes is protected by the first amendment to the United States Constitution and by the free speech provision of the Alaska Constitution [14] , article I, section 5. [15] The Supreme Court has said: [T]he practice of persons sharing common views banding together to achieve a common end is deeply embedded in the American political process. The 19th century Committees of Correspondents and the pamphleteers were early examples of this phenomena and the Federalist Papers were perhaps the most significant and lasting example. The tradition of volunteer committees for collective action has manifested itself in myriad community and public activities; in the political process it can focus on a candidate or on a ballot measure. Its value is that by collective effort individuals can make their views known, when, individually, their voices would be faint or lost. ... . The Court has acknowledged the importance of freedom of association in guaranteeing the right of people to make their voices heard on public issues: Effective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association... . The first amendment protects political association as well as political expression Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition for Fair Housing v. City of Berkeley, California, 454 U.S. 290, 294-95, 102 S.Ct. 434, 436-37, 70 L.Ed.2d 492, 497-98 (1981) (citations omitted). Restrictions on the right to associate in pursuit of political beliefs are permissible only where the government is able to show that the restrictions are justified by compelling governmental interests. Vogler v. Miller, 651 P.2d 1, 5 (Alaska 1982). Further, the restrictions must be no broader than needed to accomplish the governmental interests which justify them. Id. Under the Alaska Campaign Disclosure Act, [e]ach group before making an expenditure must register with the Commission and file the name and address of its treasurer. AS 15.13.050, 060. In addition, each group must report periodically the name and address of each officer and director, the aggregate amount of all contributions made to it, the date and amount of all contributions made by it, and all expenditures which it has made. AS 15.13.040(b). [16] In Messerli v. State, 626 P.2d 81 (Alaska 1981), we reviewed the reporting requirements of the Act. Messerli, acting individually, had sponsored newspaper advertisements designed to influence certain ballot propositions in a municipal election. He did not file a report as required by AS 15.13.040(d), and was prosecuted for violation of the Act. He moved to dismiss the prosecution on constitutional speech and privacy grounds. From the denial of this motion in the trial court we accepted review. We noted that the statutory disclosure requirements placed a burden on one's right of expression to the extent that some people might be unwilling to publish their views if they were required to identify themselves. Id. at 86. We held, however, that this burden was in general outweighed by the need for an informed electorate: Proper evaluation of the arguments made on either side can often be assisted by knowing who is backing each position. We have long recognized in court proceedings the importance of revealing to the decision maker the biases and motives of witnesses. Such information is no less important to an intelligent evaluation of what is being said during an election campaign. Similarly, a ballot issue is often of great importance financially to its proponents or opponents, or both, and multimillion dollar advertising campaigns have been waged. In such circumstances the voter may wish to cast his ballot in accordance with his approval or disapproval of the sources of financial support. Id. at 87 (footnotes omitted). However, in cases where individuals had a special need for anonymity, as where they might be subject to reprisals for publicizing their views, we held that the disclosure requirements could not be constitutionally applied. We directed the commission to adopt regulations establishing criteria for the identification of circumstances under which anonymity was required and remanded for a determination as to whether Messerli had a special need for anonymity. There exist two other compelling grounds for the disclosure of information in political campaigns. These are the deterrence of corruption and the detection of violations of contribution limitations: [D]isclosure requirements deter actual corruption and avoid the appearance of corruption by exposing large contributions and expenditures to the light of publicity. This exposure may discourage those who would use money for improper purposes either before or after the election. A public armed with information about a candidate's most generous supporters is better able to detect any post election special favors that may be given in return... . [N]ot least significant, record keeping, reporting, and disclosure requirements are an essential means of gathering the data necessary to detect violations of the contribution limitations... . Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 67-68, 96 S.Ct. 612, 658, 46 L.Ed.2d 659, 715 (1976), quoted in Messerli, 626 P.2d at 85. VECO does not claim that any disclosure requirement is per se invalid, or even that the requirements are invalid as applied in this case. Rather, the claim is that the requirements are overbroad; some applications of the Act would unjustifiably infringe on protected activities. Under such a claim, it is irrelevant that the claimant's activities themselves are not protected. [17] VECO claims that the Act imposes disclosure requirements on small groups that spend minor sums of money or even no money at all. It argues that the very existence of the requirements will chill the speech and associational rights of small groups which lack the knowledge or the initiative to comply. Furthermore, VECO argues that inclusion of such groups cannot be justified by compelling state interests. As for groups that spend no money and receive no contributions, the state responds that the Act does not require them to register. We agree. The obligation to register under section .050 does not ripen until each group intends to make a contribution or expenditure. [18] The Act does apply to groups that receive small contributions and make small expenditures but its application is justified, according to the state, by the objective of achieving an informed electorate and monitoring compliance with the $1,000 contribution limit and other legal requirements. [19] Concerning the goal of an informed electorate, the state argues: Disclosure informs voters about the sources of campaign funds. This information is critical to place each candidate in the political spectrum more precisely than is often possible on the basis of party labels and campaign speeches, and to alert the voter to the interests to which a candidate is not likely to be responsive and thus facilitate predictions of future performance in office. Disclosure of even a token contribution can provide the electorate with valuable information concerning the political position of a candidate. Concerning accurate accounting, the state argues: Accurate accounting starts at the outset. A group's first contribution may be minimal but a series of minimal contributions can quickly add up to major contributions. If proper records are not kept, the group can easily lose track of where its money has come from and where the money has gone. Analytically, there are two ways a statute could be overbroad, which might loosely be termed systemic and local. An overbroad statute is systematically overbroad if there is no core of easily identifiable and constitutionally proscribable conduct that the statute prohibits. Maryland v. J.H. Munson Co., 467 U.S. 947, 965-66, 104 S.Ct. 2839, 2852, 81 L.Ed.2d 786, 801-02 (1984). The separation of powers decreed by the state constitution requires that this court strike such a statute in its entirety, rather than re-draft it. See Alaska Const. art. II, § 1 (investing legislative power in the legislature); see generally Kimoktoak v. State, 584 P.2d 25, 31 n. 6 (Alaska 1978). On the other hand, a locally -overbroad statute is one where the unconstitutional applications can easily be lumped together and severed. To strike such a statute would be manifestly[] strong medicine, Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 613, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 2916, 37 L.Ed.2d 830, 841 (1973), particularly when the litigant's own activities are not protected, and the legislation clearly intended to proscribe them. In such cases, most courts will excise or construe the challenged portion, whenever possible, to avoid an unconstitutional result. Cf. State v. Fairbanks North Star Borough, 736 P.2d 1140, 1142 (Alaska 1987) (in a separation of powers challenge, this court found it was under a duty to construe a statute to avoid constitutional infirmity where possible). See also Broadrick, 413 U.S. at 613, 93 S.Ct. at 2916, 37 L.Ed.2d at 841 (under the federal Constitution, [f]acial overbreadth has not been invoked when a limiting construction has been or could be placed on the challenged statute). Any expenditure or contribution, even one of only $1, will trigger the registration and reporting requirements of the Act. VECO's arguments concerning this minimal threshold are similar to those which were made in Messerli. Messerli had argued that the Act was overbroad because, among other reasons, it covers individuals who spent small amounts of money to influence the outcome of a ballot proposition. [20] Our opinion in Messerli does not mention this argument. The Supreme Court of the United States in Buckley v. Valeo has indicated that the standard of review under the federal constitution on questions whether thresholds in disclosure laws are too low is one which is deferential to legislative judgments. [W]e cannot require Congress to establish that it has chosen the highest reasonable threshold. The line is necessarily a judgmental decision, best left in the context of this complex legislation to congressional discretion. We cannot say, on this bare record, that the limits designated are wholly without rationality. 424 U.S. at 83, 96 S.Ct. at 665, 46 L.Ed.2d at 724. We express no opinion on whether that same lenient standard of review is appropriate under the Alaska Constitution, because we see no reason  compelling or rational  for imposing the disclosure requirements on all joint activity. There is a level of joint political activity below which the government has no legitimate interest in regulating. Extreme examples include a father and mother expressing their political views in a letter (to which is affixed a 22¢ stamp) to their child of voting age, a political discussion among a small group of friends over lunch, agreeing to wear buttons at work, and the like. Admittedly, it is hard to imagine the Commission attempting to enforce the Act in those circumstances. However, in this case, we can eliminate that danger, along with its correlative chilling effect, by a very reasonable exercise of statutory construction. [21] We are confident the legislature would want the Act, as construed, to survive. One of the crucial portions of the Act that contributes to its overbreadth is the definition of group: `group' means ... any combination of two or more persons or individuals acting jointly who take action the major purpose of which is to influence the outcome of an election. AS 15.13.130(4). By construing the word action to include only substantial action, the Act will not be facially overbroad. Yet, it will remain largely intact to accomplish the legislature's salutary purpose of bringing about major political reform. In particular, action should include only substantial activities that are likely to directly cause more than a few votes to shift, not including intimate activities conducted entirely within one's family circle. Examples of activities ordinarily included are fundraising, making contributions, holding political meetings, and advertising. Examples of activities ordinarily excluded are discussing politics with family or friends over dinner, wearing buttons at the workplace (provided there is no effort to cause more than a few votes to shift), and mailing a letter. Admittedly, this construction of the definition of group is more vague than if all action were encompassed, no matter how small. This is exhibitive of the peculiar connection that exists between overbreadth and vagueness: an attempt to remove a statute from one category often causes the statute to jump into the other. However, action, as we have defined it here, is not unduly vague. Moreover, as applied to VECO, this definition is not even slightly vague. To the extent vagueness problems occur at all, they occur only at the periphery. That has never been grounds for facially invalidating a statute. See Young v. American Mini Theatres, 427 U.S. 50, 58-61, 96 S.Ct. 2440, 2446-48, 49 L.Ed.2d 310, 319-21 (1976) (in which, under the federal Constitution, the Supreme Court rejected a vagueness challenge, stating that even if there may be some uncertainty about the effect of the ordinances on other litigants, they are unquestionably applicable to these respondents). See generally L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 718-22 (1978). It should be noted that the Commission has authority to promulgate regulations that would further refine the definition of group. AS 15.13.030(10). That authority includes the authority to impose an expenditure threshold, below which any activity would be exempt. Such an expenditure threshold would be extremely useful in eliminating any vagueness problem our construction of the definition of group may have created.