Posted July 2, 2008 by J. Gerald Hebert

Judge Gives SpeechNow Test Case Failing Grade

Yesterday, Judge Robertson of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia denied plaintiff SpeechNow.org’s motion for a preliminary injunction in the case SpeechNow.org v. FEC.  In its motion, plaintiff argued that it is unconstitutional to require organizations making only “independent expenditures” to comply with the contribution limits applicable to federal political committees, because such “independent” organizations pose no danger of corrupting candidates or the electoral process.  SpeechNow.org is also seeking to exempt such organizations, popularly known as “527 groups,” from the political committee registration and reporting requirements, which would effectively allow wealthy donors to contribute unlimited amounts to such groups without any meaningful disclosure to the public. 

The district court denied SpeechNow.org’s request for preliminary relief, finding that it had not shown it was so irreparably harmed as to justify setting aside the “duly enacted” contribution limits.  The district court concluded that “[e]ven with these contribution caps in place, the individual plaintiffs retain the ability to associate with and contribute to SpeechNow.org – each must simply limit his contribution to $5000 per year.”  The court also rejected plaintiff’s argument that 527 groups’ claimed independence from candidates immunized them from any corruptive effect on elections: “‘Independence’ does not prevent candidates, officeholders, and party apparatchiks from being made aware of the identities of large donors, and people who operate independent expenditure committees can have the kind of ‘close ties’ to federal parties and officeholders that render them ‘uniquely positioned to serve as conduits for corruption,’ both in terms of the sale of access and the circumvention of the soft money ban.”

The decision amounted to a denial of an extraordinary request for carte blanche for 527 organizations.  Plaintiff SpeechNow.org was essentially asking the court to permit the rich to contribute millions of dollars to influence federal elections without any regulation of their activities.  What makes SpeechNow’s claim particularly disturbing is the fact that these 527 organizations are often only nominally independent and operated by individuals closely associated with candidates and party committees.  Beyond the preliminary injunction request, SpeechNow.org is also asserting that big donors have the constitutional right to give millions of dollars to 527s without any meaningful disclosure.

The decision today reaffirms what the Supreme Court has made clear for decades: that laws designed to prevent the circumvention of contribution limits serve important governmental interests by protecting the integrity of campaign finance laws.

The Campaign Legal Center, joined by Democracy 21, submitted an amici brief defending contribution limits and urging the court to deny SpeechNow.org’s motion for preliminary injunction.