Court Opinion

ID: 9785457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:46:54.126047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:24.992871
License: Public Domain

LEON, District Judge,
dissenting in part and concurring in part.
Because the moving parties have failed to demonstrate irreparable injury and because granting a stay to this Court’s judgment in its entirety will violate the First Amendment rights of various political parties, donors, broadcasters, interest groups, and minors, I respectfully dissent in part from, and concur in part in, my colleagues’ decision.
After months of painstaking analysis, this Court found unconstitutional, in whole or in part, nine of the twenty provisions of BCRA challenged by the plaintiffs. Four of those provisions were struck down unanimously (i.e., 201(5), 213, 318, and 504), and four were struck down in their entirety (i.e., 213, 318, 504, and new FECA Section 323(d)). While our reasoning may have differed in some instances, at least two members of this Court in each instance found that the unconstitutional section of the statute (or its subpart) unjustifiably infringed upon the constitutional rights of one or more of the various parties’ impacted by the BCRA campaign finance regime. Indeed, because “the loss of First Amendment freedom for even minimal periods of time unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury,” Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 374, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976), the moving parties’ arguments must be scrutinized by this Court with extreme care to ensure that they meet the high standards for this “extraordinary remedy.” Cuomo v. U.S. Nuclear Reg. Comm’n, 772 F.2d 972, 978 (D.C.Cir.1985).7 In my judgment, their arguments, for the most part, cannot withstand such scrutiny.
*22With regard to Title I, two members of this Court found that the defendants could not justify Congress’s sweeping soft money restrictions in new FECA Sections 323(a) and 323(b) that require political parties to fund nonfederal and mixed-purposed activities with only federal money. Such restrictions, in our judgment, placed an impermissible burden on the associational rights of parties and their donors. Thus, every day these BCRA provisions remain in effect donors are restricted from using donations to amplify their voices through their political parties, thereby suffering irreparable injury. It is difficult to fathom how granting a stay on these Title I provisions could possibly be in the public interest, or be justified by the relatively minor inconvenience to the FEC of having to reinstate, for the most part, its all-too-familiar pre-BCRA rules. Moreover, the defendants’ argument that this Court’s judgment is “likely to create the appearance or fact of corruption” by allowing political parties and others to raise and use nonfederal funds (i.e., soft money) is similarly unavailing. Gov’t Mot. for Stay at 9, 13-14. As long as soft money cannot be used for federal purposes, which is after all the majority holding of this Court, the risk of actual or apparent corruption is nonexistent. Simply stated, the public interest is much better served by protecting the public’s First Amendment freedoms and by ensuring that the political parties and other participants in the public arena are free to play their traditional roles in the electoral process unimpeded by unconstitutional restraints.
With regard to Title II, I similarly do not believe the moving parties have demonstrated sufficient irreparable harm, alone, to warrant a stay — particularly as to Sections 201(5) and 213 which were unanimously struck down by this Court. However, I do believe that the FEC’s unfortunate failure to promulgate regulations for the backup definition, as it did for the primary definition,8 has sufficiently deprived the parties of guidance regarding the contours of the backup definition to warrant a stay of the primary definition portion of our judgment on Section 201. Doing so, at this time, is palatable since the primary definition does not take effect as a practical matter until thirty days before the first primary election and will therefore not immediately injure the plaintiffs. Unlike my colleagues, however, I would limit that stay to the period of time necessary for the FEC to issue regulatory guidance on the backup definition, and thereby minimize the negative consequences of reinstating the primary definition.
Finally, with respect to Sections 318 and 504, which are conceptually distinct from Titles I and II and were also struck down unanimously by this Court, the moving parties have not even attempted to demonstrate that irreparable harm will occur if *23the judgments as to these sections are not stayed; nor could they have done so, credibly. To me, including these flawed sections in a statute-wide stay would be like a fisherman retaining whatever the ocean yields to a net with undersized mesh. It increases his “catch,” but the public interest dictates against it. Suffice it to say, continuing such unconstitutional restrictions on minors and demanding such unconstitutional record production from broadcasters is, in my judgment, inconsistent with both the public interest and the spirit of the First Amendment.
ORDER
For the reasons set forth in the Memorandum Opinion of Circuit Judge Henderson and District Judge Kollar-Ko-telly, from which District Judge Leon concurs in part and dissents in part, it is this 19th day of May, 2003, hereby
ORDERED that the Government Defendants’ Motion for Stay of Final Judgment Pending Appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States [#327] is GRANTED; it is further
ORDERED that the Intervening Defendants’ Motion to Stay Injunction Pending Appeal [# 322] is GRANTED; it is further
ORDERED that the NRA Plaintiffs’ Motion to Stay Pursuant to Rule 62(c) [# 317] is DENIED AS MOOT; it is further
ORDERED that Plaintiff ACLU’s Motion for Stay Pursuant to Rule 62(c) [# 325] is DENIED AS MOOT; and it is further
ORDERED that this Court’s May 1, 2003, Final Judgment is STAYED pending final disposition of these actions in the Supreme Court of the United States.
All three judges concur that it is hereby
ORDERED that Certain of the Madison Center Plaintiffs’1 Motion for Injunction Pending Appeal [# 321] is DENIED; it is further
ORDERED that Plaintiff AFL-CIO’s Motion for an Injunction Pending Appeal [# 319] is DENIED; it is further
ORDERED that the NRA Plaintiffs’ Motion for an Administrative Stay, Pending Adjudication of Their Motion to Stay Pursuant to Rule 62(c) [# 318] is DENIED AS MOOT; it is further
ORDERED that the Government Defendants’ Emergency Motion for Temporary Stay of Final Judgment Pending Consideration of Motion for Stay of Final Judgment Pending Appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States [# 326] is DENIED AS MOOT; it is further
ORDERED that Certain of the Madison Center Plaintiffs’2 Motion to Convene an Open Hearing on their Motion for an Injunction Pending Appeal [#328] is DENIED 3; and it is further
ORDERED that the Madison Center Plaintiffs’ Motion to Alter or Amend the Judgment [# 316] is DENIED AS MOOT.
SO ORDERED.

. The Court will only grant a stay pending appeal if the moving parties can “show (1) that [they] have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; (2) that [they] will suffer irreparable injury if the stay is denied; (3) that issuance of the stay will not cause substantial harm to other parties; and (4) that the public interest will be served by issuance of the stay." United States v. Philip Morris, Inc., 314 F.3d 612, 617 (D.C.Cir.2003) (citing Washington Metro. Area Transit Comm’n v. Holiday Tours, Inc., 559 F.2d 841, 843 *22(D.C.Cir.1977)). These factors must be weighed against one another, and the mere presence of one factor does not dictate an outcome for or against the stay. See Serono Labs., Inc. v. Shalala, 158 F.3d 1313, 1318 (D.C.Cir.1998); CityFed Fin. Corp. v. Office of Thrift Supervision, 58 F.3d 738, 747 (D.C.Cir.1995).

. Some commenters on the proposed FEC regulations argued that “the period between a final decision in [this] litigation and the 2004 elections is likely to be too short to permit the commission to complete a rulemaking [on the backup definition] in time to provide guidance, if the operative definition is invalidated. They further argued that the [backup] definition’s application to the entire election cycle, and not just the 30- or 60-day periods to which the current definition is limited, exacerbates the timing issue." Electioneering Communications, 67 Fed.Reg. 65190, 65191 (Oct. 23, 2002). Without regard to these concerns, the FEC decided that promulgating regulations for the backup definition was "premature.” Id.

. For purposes of this motion, the Madison Center Plaintiffs include the National Right to Life Committee, Inc., National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund, Club for Growth, Inc., and Indiana Family Institute, Inc.

. For purposes of this motion, the Madison Center Plaintiffs include the National Right to Life Committee, Inc., National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund, Club for Growth, Inc., and Indiana Family Institute, Inc.

.As all three judges have signed this Order, the Court has complied with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62(c) and does not need to issue this order by sitting in open court. Fed.R.Civ.P. 62(c).