WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday extended new privacy rights to conservative charities that raise money in California, ruling they may not be required to reveal their big donors to the California attorney general.
The justices by a 6-3 vote ruled the forced disclosures violate the freedom of association that is protected by the 1st Amendment. This is particularly so, the court said, because conservative groups and their donors fear they will be the target of harassment by left-leaning opponents.
They did so citing a landmark ruling from the civil rights era. In 1958, the high court shielded the NAACP from revealing its members to the state of Alabama on the grounds Blacks and civil rights advocates faced threats, intimidation and even violence. The justices said then 1st Amendment protects not just the freedom of speech but also freedom to associate with others in support of political causes.
“We are left to conclude that the attorney general’s disclosure requirement imposes a widespread burden on donors’ associational rights,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “And this burden cannot be justified on the ground that the regime is narrowly tailored to investigating charitable wrongdoing,”
The new ruling overturns an anti-fraud policy that was first enforced under former California Attorney General Kamala Harris, now the vice president.
Federal law requires charities that seek tax-deductible donations submit an annual list of their major contributors. This Schedule B form is kept confidential. For the past decade, California authorities have insisted that the 120,000 charities which raise money in the state submit a copy of their Schedule B.
The list of donors is not made public, but state prosecutors said it is useful to detect and investigate possible frauds. For example, it would raise concerns if a tax-exempt charity were spending an unusual amount of money through businesses owned by one of its donors.
Two prominent conservative groups refused to comply and sued Harris and the state. They are the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, co-founded by Charles and David Koch, which is a sister group of its political arm, Americans for Prosperity. The other is the Thomas More Law Center based in Michigan, which says its mission is to “preserve America’s Judeo-Christian heritage.” It began with funding from Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza.
In 2016, U.S. District Judge Manuel Real in Los Angeles ruled for the charities and said the disclosures could “chill the exercise” of their “1st Amendment freedoms to speak anonymously and to engage in expressive association.”
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit disagreed and upheld the disclosure rule. They said it would have “at most a modest impact on contributions” and furthered “an important state interest in policing charitable fraud.”
Last year, both groups filed appeals in the Supreme Court, which agreed in January to decide them together.
