On November 9, the 10th circuit issued its opinion in Sampson v Buescher, 08-1389.  The 31-page ruling says that Colorado cannot require campaign committees set up to either support or oppose a ballot measure to file extensive campaign finance reports, if they spend relatively little money.  In this case, the plaintiffs had spent $782.02 to oppose an annexation ballot measure in a small community.

Colorado law imposes $50 per day fines on committees that spend as much as $200 on a ballot measure and do not report.  Reporting involves listing the names and addresses of every contribution of $20 or more, in reports that are due several times during the campaign.  The reports must also include the committee’s fund balance at the beginning and end of the reporting period, and the name and address of its bank (the law requires that such committees have a bank account).  The opinion says, “The average citizen cannot be expected to master on his or her own the many campaign financial disclosure requirements set forth in Colorado’s constitution, the Campaign Act, and the Secretary of State’s Rules Concerning Campaign and Political Finance.  Even if those rules that apply to issue committees may be few, one would have to sift through them all to determine which apply…The Secretary of State’s website acknowledged that the State’s campaign finance laws are ‘complex’ and the official who oversaw the campaign finance department testified that she advises those with difficult questions to retain an attorney.”  The opinion then notes that when the plaintiffs did hire an attorney, they probably spent more on the attorney than they did on their entire campaign.

The opinion was written by Judge Harris Hartz, a Bush Jr. appointee, and co-signed by Judges Mary Briscoe, a Clinton appointee, and Monroe McKay, a Carter appointee.  The Institute for Justice, which represented the plaintiffs, made this 4 minute video about the case before the decision came out.