February 22, 2011 in News

Court rejects appeal to hide campaign donors

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The U.S. Supreme Court today said it won’t take up the appeal of Human Life of Washington, which has been ordered to disclose its donors to a 2008 campaign against the state’s assisted suicide ballot measure.

The court denied, without comment, the organization’s request to review and overturn rulings by the federal district and 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Human Life is required to list donors to its efforts against Initiative 1000, also known as the “Death With Dignity” initiative. It allows terminally ill people to receive a prescription for a lethal dose of drugs they can use to end their own lives.

Human Life had argued that it should not have to register as a political action committee, and thus disclose its donors, because it was sponsoring ads about the issue of assisted suicide, not against I-1000 itself. Because it wasn’t directly related to the campaign, it couldn’t be regulated, their attorney said.

Both lower courts rejected that argument. A 9th Circuit panel ruled last fall that voters deserve reliable information as more groups enter the political “marketplace.”

16 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  meadman on February 22 at 10:50 a.m.

  This is the same court that ruled in the “Citizens United” case that big corporations “are people” and could contribute big $$$ to campaigns (i.e., buy their personal congressperson) and could hide the contributors……!??? explain that??

• 

  SpokaneLiberal on February 22 at 11:02 a.m.

  I can explain it. This was not a ruling but a refusal to rule. Plus citizen’s united didn’t say they could hide their contributions. It actually upheld disclosure laws, but just said corporations and unions could give unlimited funds.

  Oh and Citizens United was perhaps one of the 3 worst court decisions of the last 15 years (along with Kelo v New London and Bush v Gore Remedy section only the equal protection part was correct)

• 

  valleyman on February 22 at 11:23 a.m.

  Good Grief! SpokaneLiberal you really do take the cake with the Bush vs. Gore statement! It’s just like in Washington - Recount recount recount until you get the result you like… It took Gregoire three recounts to overcome Rossi in their first showdown and then and only then did the Democrats discover previously untallied ballots in unsecured boxes in a backroom somewhere in King County… not to mention all the dead folks and felons who somehow voted in that election and were expunged afterward.

  Bush vs. Gore put a stop to election boards making up rules as they went to count ballots that no clear intent could be derived from. You fail to mention that subsequent independent reviews of the ballots upheld the outcome of the court!

  Sorry, but I’m not buying Bush vs. Gore was one of the worst decisions of the past several decades. Kelo vs. New London yes - and frankly it surprises me you feel it was a bad case given that it was decided by the Court’s liberals over the sole notion of tax base being a legitimate reason for condemning property.

• 

  hawken on February 22 at 11:35 a.m.

  It is prudent for the left to attempt to hide as much as they can from the public. The more that is made know to the public, the less support for the left. The night cannot hide from the morning sun.

• 

  SpokaneLiberal on February 22 at 11:41 a.m.

  Valleyman - I have a rational approach to court decisions. Just because the liberal wing of the court decides one thing doesn’t mean the justification is legitimate. Kelo and Citizens United are the worst two decisions of the last 15 years, but Bush V Gore is up there and here is why:

  One Bush V Gore. I agreed with the supreme court that the recount in one county a dozen times until the outcome changes is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. I disagreed with the second part only. The court ruled there was no remedy because Florida law said they only had until a particular day in December so the electors could fully participate. I think that was wrong. There were remedies that fit the timeframe and there was a more important principal. Rather than getting it right (recount the whole state once) they said it was more important to have someone, anyone, be able to fully participate as an elector.

  This is what differentiates it from the Gregoire situation (which I think violates the first part of Bush v Gore - which I support) is that it isn’t the localized recount that was the problem. The problem was the assertion that the timeline was more important that it being right - and as such there was no remedy that would love the Due Process problems.

• 

  SpokaneLiberal on February 22 at 11:43 a.m.

  love = solve

• 

  SpokaneLiberal on February 22 at 11:46 a.m.

  Hawken

  The right wing is the ones who tries to hide donors in this case and the marriage amendment cases. You are right they cannot hide from the sun, which is fine by me, in this case and all others. I give only to political causes I would gladly have my name associated with.

• 

  Scoutster on February 22 at 11:51 a.m.

  Hawken…

  Oops, sorry, but your blind and kneejerk prejudice was clearly on display by your comment here.

  It’s your right wing buddies, the ones that want government in all our decisions, that are trying to keep their support quiet.

• 

  hawken on February 22 at 12:25 p.m.

  Scoutster:

  No knee jerk. I understand that “Human Life” is a pro-life organization. Thus my comment, “the night cannot hide from the morning sun.”

  Nor does that negate the first part of my statement.

• 

  greenlibertarian on February 22 at 1:03 p.m.

  Minor correction, “Human Life” is a pro-“suffer miserably by government dictate at the end of your life when you wish the suffering would end so you could go to meet your Maker” organization.

• 

  valleyman on February 22 at 1:13 p.m.

  SpokaneLiberal,

  Thanks for going in to detail to explain your position. It’s refreshing when people put in some effort to their debate rather than just hurl empty insults and emotional appeals.

  While we might disagree in some areas, I hold respect for you because of how you choose to engage in dialogue.

  Thank you!

• 

  spokanecommunistparty on February 22 at 1:25 p.m.

  With out “publicly funded only” campaigns, an American election is really just a boxing match between corporations.

• 

  SpokaneLiberal on February 22 at 6:48 p.m.

  Thank you Valleyman

  I don’t always live up to the goal of civility, but I do try. More importantly if all everyone ever screams is you suck because you aren’t my side we can never accomplish anything. I have been convinced to change my mind before, and if I didn’t think it could ever happen again I wouldn’t be here.

• 

  Patanjali on February 22 at 9:13 p.m.

  I suggest that the commentators actually read Bush v. Gore before commenting on the decision. Perhaps we can bring some light to the darkness of ignorance with respect to this decision. The respect that a Supreme Court decision has among the federal judges in the country can be demonstrated by how often the decision is cited in subsequent rulings. So for example, during the ten years after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which ended the “separate but equal’ doctrin, the decision was cited 25 times by lower courts in support of the decision. During the ten years after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which declared that a woman had a fundamental right to control the reproductive process of her body the decision was cited 65 times by lower federal courts. The 2000 Bush v. Gore decision has not been cited one time in the 10 years since the decision, not once. What this means is that the decision is not respected as a legal precedent among both liberal and conservative federal judges.

  The Bush v. Gore decision stopped a recount of the ballots in Florida which the Florida court had ordered. At the time of this decision Bush held a 537 vote lead out of nearly 6 million votes. Five Supreme Court Justices first isued a stay and then a decision that stopped the recount. The five Justices, Rehnquist, O’Connor, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas were considered judicial conservatives. This is not the same as a political conservative. A judicial conservative believes in the preeminence of state rights and judicial restraint, so what is strange about the Bush v. Gore decision is that a State Court which had ordered a recount pursuant to state law was overturned. Bush v. Gore violated the principles of judicial conservatism. This was judicial activism. This was a political decision that represents one of the most disturbing developments of the last few years as politics has been infused into even the most sacred of our nonpartisan institutions, the judiciary.

  Conservative justices no longer operate by the rules of traditional judicial restraint and conservatism. This trend is seen in the decisions striking down state laws attempting to regulate firearms as the Justices have used judicial activism and novel never before heard legal arguments to ban states from regulating guns. In the United Citizen decision the justices struck down a state law regulating elections within that state, always an area that has been controled by the states except when obvious violations of civil rights were involved such as poll taxes and white only primaries. The United Citizen decision ignorred a century of legal precedents and thus must be classified as judicial activism as judicial conservatism implies that what was the law should remain the law.

  So the Bush v. Gore decision was not only bad law, not cited by any court as a precedent, but it was a political decision, not based upon the law nor even on the traditional judicial conservatism of its supporters.

• 

  SpokaneLiberal on February 22 at 9:55 p.m.

  Patanjali

  As discussed above the Equal Protection arguments made by Bush were pretty legitimate.

  The Supreme Court ruling there was no alternative remedy was the scary part.

• 

  valleyman on February 23 at 10:47 a.m.

  I agree with SpokaneLiberal in this sense:

  “The Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that the Florida Supreme Court’s decision, calling for a statewide recount, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[26] The Court held the Equal Protection Clause guarantees to individuals that their ballots cannot be devalued by “later arbitrary and disparate treatment”. Even if the recount was fair in theory, it was unfair in practice. The record, as weighed by the Florida Supreme Court, suggested that different standards were seemingly applied to the recount from ballot to ballot, precinct to precinct, and county to county, even when identical types of ballots and machines were used.[30]

  According to the per curiam opinion, the statewide standard (that a “legal vote” is “one in which there is a ‘clear indication of the intent of the voter’”[31]) could not guarantee that each county would count the votes in a constitutionally permissible fashion. The per curiam opinion stated that its applicability was “limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”“

  The 5-4 ruling came in regard to the remedy. The court, as you can see from above, said this ruling was applicable only to Florida and only in this case. Thus, maybe this helps answer your question why this ruling isn’t cited with any specificity or regularity.

  Additionally, most states learned from the Florida debacle and all use the same or roughly the same voting equipment so as to ensure if a problem is found, the remedy can be applied universally and not one county at a time, violating the equal protection requirements.

  In short, I believe the court felt the only remedy was to end the counting because there was no way to ensure a recount was conducted the same in all counties because the counties were using different voting mechanisms. Thus, only the legislature could remedy the situation, and thus, the 5-4 vote was deferential to the legislature and not legislating from the bench…