A federal judge threw out Florida’s electioneering law holding that the law blocks political speech of groups discussing issues, even when they are not taking sides. The state plans to appeal the ruling. -DB
Orlando Sentinel
May 26, 2009
By Aaron Deslatte
TALLAHASSEE, Flor. — Federal Judge Stephan Mickle has tossed out Florida’s electioneering communications law, effectively freeing groups that spend unlimited sums of money on attacking candidates from requirements to publicly disclose their donors.
Mickle’s order filed last Friday stems from a lawsuit brought by a Broward condo association, along with a University of Florida student libertarian club, the National Taxpayers Union, and other plaintiffs, and will likely have a broad impact on the 2010 elections.
Florida has some of the strictest regulations on interest-group communications in elections nationwide.
Its law requires so-called electioneering communications organizations, or ECOs as they’re known in Florida, to follow a number of regulations: registering with the government within 24 hours of their creation; appointing a campaign treasurer; making regular reports disclosing all donors and expenses; restricting expenditures and contributions, including not spending money raised in the five days before the election; and including a prominent “disclaimer” on each communication that disclosed the group’s name.
Now those groups would be largely free to operate without timely disclosing their activities to the public, although they’ll still have to file reports with the IRS. Those federal reports, though, are due earlier in the final weeks of the campaign season, and federal law doesn’t require them to report last-minute activities until well after the election is over.
Supporters hailed the final order, even though it has been expected for months since Judge Mickle issued a temporary injunction blocking the law last fall.
“The function of this law was to professionalize political speech,” said the group’s lead lawyer, Bert Gall, with the Virginia-based conservative Institute for Justice.
“This law basically regulated the speech of every civic group and college club, every two people who got together to exercise political speech,” he added. “That’s insane.”
The state Division of Elections said it planned to appeal the order.
“This ruling, consistent with the preliminary injunction entered last October, enjoins the Division of Elections and the Florida Elections Commission from enforcing all laws relating to ‘electioneering communications’ in Chapter 106,” said Elections spokeswoman Jennifer Krell Davis. “This ruling does not require any change in procedures as we had stopped enforcing these laws based upon the preliminary injunction.”
“We plan to appeal the final judgment.”
Copyright 2009 Orlando Sentinel