Supreme Court Won’t Hear Challenge to Alaska Campaign Finance Rules

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Lower courts held that the challengers probably wouldn’t win on the merits of their First Amendment claims.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 18 declined to take up a challenge to Alaska’s campaign disclosure law that state voters approved in 2020.

Donors and independent expenditure groups contesting the law argued its requirements were burdensome and unconstitutional.

The decision came in the form of an unsigned order in the case known as Smith v. Stillie. No justices dissented from the denial of the petition. The court did not explain its decision.

Voters approved ending partisan primaries but adopted open primaries and ranked-choice voting in general elections in the same 2020 ballot measure, which was called the Better Elections Initiative. State courts have upheld those provisions.

In the case at hand, donors claimed, among other things, that the mandated public disclosure of contributions above $2,000 that are received by third-party groups was unconstitutional.

In their petition filed with the Supreme Court on June 13, donors asked the justices to decide if the state’s “requirement that individual donors file duplicative reports of their political contributions within 24 hours of making them—on pain of thousands of dollars in fines—violate the First Amendment.”

The challengers also asked if the state’s “extensive” ad disclosure rules which require publicly naming individual donors violate the First Amendment.

Ballot Measure 2 was approved by voters on Nov. 3, 2020, and became law on Feb. 28, 2021. The Alaska Public Offices Commission adopted regulations on June 9, 2021, to implement the measure.

In April 2022, the challengers sued, seeking a court order blocking several provisions of the law.

The statute requires every individual or group that contributes more than $2,000 in a year or that made one or more independent expenditures on behalf of a candidate must report the event within 24 hours.

Another provision requires that print or video media paid for by an “outside-funded entity” has to carry a disclaimer “throughout the entirety of the communication” if a majority of the contributions to the entity originated from outside Alaska.

Another aimed at so-called dark money whose origin is not disclosed to the public, required that the “true source” of contributions to the entities had to be disclosed.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the challengers’ request to block the law in an order on July 14, 2022. The judge found that the challengers waited more than a year to seek to block the law and failed to show they were likely to succeed on the merits.

The challengers appealed the district court’s ruling regarding contribution reporting and donor disclaimer requirements.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed on March 15 this year.

Although “the appeal presents questions central to our rights as American citizens,” the circuit said its ability to “assist in the final resolution of the critical issues before the district court” was limited because the case came before it in an emergency posture before the record could be fully developed.

The circuit court denied the request to block the state law after finding the challengers failed to meet the “heavy burden” of showing the district court “abused its discretion.” The circuit also determined that the challengers “were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claims.”

The case is now expected to resume in the district court.