On October 16, U.S. District Court Judge Roberto Lange enjoined a South Dakota campaign finance disclosure law as applied to the Institute for Free Speech. The Institute wants to publish an analysis of two South Dakota ballot measures on the Institute’s web page. The Institute does not expect to take a position on the ballot measures, which relate to campaign finance. On October 8 it filed a federal lawsuit to protect itself, because the existing law seems to require the Institute to disclose its top five contributors if it publishes commentary about the ballot issues.

Here is the 13-page order in Institute for Free Speech v Jackley, 3:18cv-3017. The order depends on the fact that the Institute would not be spending any money, or virtually no money, just by posting its own analysis on its own web page. To the extent that the Institute wanted to send out a press release to news outlets mentioning its analysis, the cost for that would be virtually nothing as well. The state had argued that the Institute would not be in violation of the law even if it didn’t disclose, but the law itself seems to say that it would be in possible legal jeopardy, so the Institute received judicial relief.