Posted August 28, 2007 by Paul S. Ryan

Campaign Legal Center Files Amici Brief in Support of San Francisco Contribution Limits

The Campaign Legal Center filed an amici (“friend of the court”) brief yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in support of contribution limits passed as part of San Francisco’s Proposition O.  The brief was filed by the Legal Center on behalf of itself and four other nonprofit political reform organizations in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a San Francisco ordinance limiting contributions to political committees that make only independent expenditures. 

In 2000, San Francisco voters approved Proposition O, which included a $500 limit on contributions to political committees making expenditures to support or oppose candidates in San Francisco elections.  Earlier this summer, two San Francisco political committees—the Committee on Jobs Candidate Advocacy Fund and the Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee—filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the limit (No. C-07-3199 JSW).  These plaintiffs are now seeking a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the ordinance. 

The Campaign Legal Center and its co-amici filed a brief today supporting San Francisco’s contribution limit and urging the court to reject the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction.

The Supreme Court’s decision in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission—a decision completely ignored by the plaintiffs in their court filings—makes clear that contributions like those at issue in this case may be constitutionally regulated.  San Francisco’s limit on contributions to independent committees directly advances the city’s compelling interest in preventing the appearance of corruption that prompted San Francisco’s voters to enact the limit in 2000.

Joining the Campaign Legal Center as amici are the California Clean Money Campaign, California Common Cause, the Center for Governmental Studies and Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action.