A U.S. District Court judge decided a small Kansas organization primarily engaged in local-issue advocacy shouldn’t be compelled under current state laws or regulations to register as a political action committee despite campaigning for election of a specific candidate for Overland Park mayor.
The dispute was between Fresh Vision OP, with a membership ranging from two to six people, and the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. KGEC had ordered Fresh Vision to file paperwork as a PAC following the group’s expenditure of more than $100 to champion the 2021 mayoral candidacy of Faris Farassati with mailers and a website. The Overland Park city council member, who agitated against certain building development incentives, finished a distant third in the election.
Rather than comply with KGEC’s directive to form a PAC and transparently disclose donors, Fresh Vision’s leadership suspended operations and filed a lawsuit with assistance from the Institute for Free Speech. The Washington, D.C., nonprofit has actively opposed campaign disclosure laws and supported outcome of the Citizens United case that enabled U.S. elections to be further cloaked in dark money.
In the Kansas lawsuit, Fresh Vision officers James Muir and Chengny Thao alleged provisions of the Kansas Campaign Finance Act violated their First Amendment right to free speech in political affairs. The suit challenged on constitutional grounds the state’s definition of a PAC and the imposition of donor reporting requirements once independent expenditures advocating for a candidate surpassed $100.
District Court Judge Daniel Crabtree previously issued a temporary restraining order against KGEC before releasing a 33-page opinion viewed as a partial victory for Fresh Vision.
On Friday, Crabtree imposed a permanent injunction preventing state officials from designating Fresh Vision as a PAC.
The issue boiled down to distinctions between “a” and “the” major purpose of Fresh Vision. The judge said “the” central purpose of Fresh Vision was issue advocacy. Its support for an unsuccessful mayoral candidate was merely “a” purpose of the organization. Groups that occasionally engaged in campaign speech, the court’s decision said, cannot be subjected to the full weight of campaign finance standards applicable to PACs in Kansas.
The judge also said Fresh Vision lacked standing to bring its pre-enforcement, “chilled-speech” challenge to the state campaign finance act’s threshold on independent expenditures. In the decision, the judge said plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a “credible threat” of the type of enforcement that chilled First Amendment rights.
“Plaintiffs failed to shoulder their burden to establish a substantially disproportionate number of unconstitutional applications,” the opinion said.
In the end, Crabtree declined to accept the plaintiffs’ argument it was necessary to strike down the entirety of the state’s campaign finance act.
“This is a case about balance — the balance between a citizen’s right to free speech and a state government’s interest in campaign finance regulation,” the judge wrote.
Mark Skoglund, executive director of the state Governmental Ethics Commission, wasn’t available for comment Tuesday on the decision. State government offices in Shawnee County were closed due to the winter storm.
Charles Miller, an attorney with Institute for Free Speech, said the federal court ruling in Kansas protected the right of citizens to speak about local issues without “fear of being mired in complex campaign finance regulations.”
“Groups like Fresh Vision exist primarily to improve their communities through issue advocacy,” he said. “The First Amendment doesn’t allow bureaucrats to use arcane regulations to burden these groups’ political speech rights simply because they sometimes express support for candidates who share their values.”
Excerpts or more from this article, originally published on Kansas Reflector appear in this post. Republished, with permission, under a Creative Commons License.