On December 5, U.S. District Court Judge James Teilborg declared Arizona’s definition of “political committee” to be unconstitutional because it is vague and overbroad. Galassini v Town of Fountain Hills, 2:11cv-2097. The case began in 2011 when Dina Galassini was threatened with prosecution bcause she had e-mailed a group of friends and suggested they hold a rally to oppose a bond measure, and she had not registered as a “political committee.”

After she sued, the legislature amended the law to provide that a “political committee” must have spent or raised $250. The town and the state then argued that because Galassini had not spent or raised that much, her lawsuit is moot. However, she still won a preliminary decision on September 30, 2013, because the law still left her in danger. As the 2013 decision explained, if any one of the people who attended her rally raised or spent $250, the entire group would be in danger of having failed to report as a “political committee.” Filing as a “political committee” involves choosing a chair and a treasurer (who must be separate people), and filing numerous campaign finance reports, and printing “paid for by (followed by the name of the committee)” on all the communications of the group.

After the 2013 decision, Galassini resolved her differences with the town government, but the new decision of December 5, 2014, still finds the state law unconstitutional. The opinion is especially critical of the state’s definition of “political committee”, which is contained in a single sentence that is 183 words long. The decision says that the definition is far too vague and confusing to be constitutional. Thanks to Dan Tokaji for this news.