Your readers have raised a number of interesting points and questions about IJ’s study on disclosure in the ballot issue context on which I’d like to comment.
First, its important to be clear about our position. We support a free market in information. Disclosure should be between groups that speak out about ballot issues and their contributors. If some groups think disclosure is important, they can disclose their contributors and perhaps even make it an issue in the campaign. If reporters or voters favor it, they can call on groups to disclose. But the government should not require disclosure simply because people want to exercise their First Amendment rights.
That does not mean that no one will know who is behind a ballot initiative. Placing an issue on the ballot is a fairly detailed process. Someone must actually draft the language of the initiative, gather the necessary signatures, and go through the process to place the issue on the ballot. That person or group will obviously have to be disclosed.
But disclosure laws apply to more than just the sponsors of a ballot initiative.
For example, Colorado requires any group of “two or more people” who spend as little as $200 to “support or oppose” a ballot issue to register as an “issue committee” and comply with disclosure laws. That includes pretty much any group that wants to communicate effectively to voters about a ballot initiative. In my NRO piece, I gave the example of a small group of neighbors outside of Parker, Colo. who opposed the annexation of their neighborhood into the town. They didn’t intend to become a “campaign committee;” they simply intended to speak out about a ballot issue.
A few of your readers pointed out that people often support a ballot issue because they directly benefit from it. True enough. And others support ballot issues for philosophical or ideological reasons. But these are the same reasons that people exercise their rights to free speech, association, and their right to vote. There’s nothing corrupt about that. We have secret ballots because a person’s vote is their business, not ours. Why should exercising one’s right to associate by contributing to a group that speaks out about ballot issues be any different? As one of your readers put it, “I might be curious about who will benefit, but my curiosity does not create a right for me to know the answer.”
It would be interesting to know many things about those who support ballot issues. Would it not be useful to know that a ballot initiative concerning a state’s response to terrorism was supported or opposed primarily by Muslims? We could say the same thing about the age, sex, race and ethnicity, financial status, and sexual orientation of those who support various ballot issues. Why not compel the disclosure of that information as well?
Finally, one of your readers pointed to Ilya Somin’s post about an eminent domain “reform” initiative launched by the California League of Cities. The CLC seems to be capitalizing on the reform effort by property rights advocates and trying to pass of its initiative as something similar when it is not. So doesn’t disclosing who is behind the effort provide useful information to voters?
Probably, at least for those who know what the CLC is. Fortunately, everyone else has people like Tim Sandefur and Ilya and groups like Pacific Legal and IJ to explain the details. As the election nears, many other individuals and groups will express their views on both sides of the issue. They will be part of the debate because they want to be, not because the law requires them to be. That’s a marketplace of ideas. Disclosure laws add nothing to that marketplace that voters can’t already discover without burdening and threatening First Amendment rights.