The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to step in to take down a San Francisco city ordinance that forces campaign committees to disclose the identities of their donors, despite widespread concern the requirement tramples First Amendment free speech rights.
And in the wake of the Supreme Court's action, supporters of the measure say they are calling on other state and local governments and Congress, to follow San Francisco's lead and enact similar rules nationwide in the name of driving out "dark money" from politics.
On Oct. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition to appeal from opponents of the measure, dubbed by supporters as the "Sunlight on Dark Money" law.
Jon Golinger
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The denial came without any noted dissents from the high court's justices, including any of the six members of the court's conservative majority.
California law already required certain political ads published by political action committees to list the committee's chief financial contributors. However, in 2019, San Francisco voters took the law a step further, by passing a new ordinance that now required committees to also name the top donors to the chief financial contributors.
Supporters of the ordinance said it was needed to expose so-called "shell committees," which they said were used by the wealthy and corporations to hide political spending.
That ordinance was challenged in court by political activist Todd David and the committee known as No on E. David and others had formed No on E to support a 2022 ballot measure known as Proposition B, which would have changed the composition and appointment structure of San Francisco's Building Inspection Commission.
According to court documents, the No on E committee intended to publish ads in mailers and newspapers and online.
David and No on E argued the San Francisco ordinance was unconstitutional because it violated free speech rights by forcing political groups to include certain information on their ads. They also argued the donor disclosure requirements would overwhelm the message the ads were attempting to use to get voters' attention.
And they argued the measure would unconstitutionally chill political speech by frightening away donors who may otherwise wish to remain anonymous.
The challenges, however, were turned away in court.
In that ruling, the Ninth Circuit judges noted "donors to local committees are often committees themselves and ... committees often obscure their actual donors through misleading and even deceptive committee names."
They pointed to a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which said: ""Plaintiffs never satisfactorily answer the question of how uninhibited, robust, and wide-open speech can occur when organizations hide themselves from the scrutiny of the voting public."
After the Ninth Circuit refused to reconsider the decision, David and No on E, in partnership with attorneys from the Institute for Free Speech, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
That bid was backed by a bevy of supporting briefs from other groups who argued the San Francisco ordinance and the Ninth Circuit's decision will harm speech rights in America. Some also filed in support of the challengers to argue the Ninth Circuit had applied too loose of a constitutional standard in upholding the ordinance.
Groups filing supporting briefs included: the Americans for Prosperity Foundation; the Manhattan Institute; The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression; Advancing American Freedom; Americans for Limited Government; the National Religious Broadcasters; the Yankee Institute; the Buckeye Institute; the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence; the Cato Institute; the Liberty Justice Center; and the Citizen Action Defense Fund.
Despite such support urging the court to take action, the justices refused.
Following the Supreme Court's denial, supporters of the San Francisco ordinance hailed the decision as a victory.
Jon Golinger, a so-called "democracy advocate" at the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen, who co-authored the San Francisco ordinance, said the decision will allow "San Francisco’s Sunlight on Dark Money law to keep working, so voters can consider the merits of the messages on campaign ads in light of the funders."
He urged other governments throughout the U.S. to follow San Francisco's lead and similarly clamp down on such campaign tactics.
"We hope other cities, states, and Congress will follow suit and enact similarly strong campaign ad disclosure laws to give voters the information that they need," Golinger said.
Tom Garrett, chief communications officer for the Institute for Free Speech, however, said the challengers were "very disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear this case," given its speech implications.
"... The Institute for Free Speech remains committed to challenging laws that compel speakers to carry government messages at the expense of their own speech. We believe San Francisco's advertising requirements continue to infringe on First Amendment rights, chilling political participation and distorting public discourse," said Garrett.