CRG Network v. Barland

48 F. Supp. 3d 1191, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124150, 2014 WL 4391193
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedSeptember 5, 2014
DocketCase No. 14-C-719
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 48 F. Supp. 3d 1191 (CRG Network v. Barland) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
CRG Network v. Barland, 48 F. Supp. 3d 1191, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124150, 2014 WL 4391193 (E.D. Wis. 2014).

Opinion

DECISION AND ORDER

RUDOLPH T- RANDA, District Judge.

The plaintiff, CRG Network, is an organization whose mission is to help citizens elect fiscally conservative candidates, assert property rights, and remove corrupt and/or fiscally irresponsible politicians from office. CRG is a “committee” as that term is defined in Wisconsin’s campaign finance law. Wis. Stat. § 11.01(4).

In the upcoming general election, CRG believes that Dan Knodl, Robyn Vos, John Nygren and Dale Kooyenga are excellent candidates for the Wisconsin Assembly because they share the same fundamental beliefs as CRG with respect to fiscal conservatism, limited government, property rights, individual liberty, and clean and ethical government. As such, CRG sent $250 campaign donations to each of these individuals. Mr. Knodl accepted his donation, but the other candidates returned their respective donations, either in whole or in part, because they had reached the $7,763 limit on donations from committees like CRG. See Wis. Stat. § 11.26(9)(b), discussed more fully below.

In this action, CRG argues that the contribution limits in § 11.26(9) violate its First Amendment right to participate in [1193]*1193the upcoming election. CRG moves for a preliminary injunction, arguing that recent Supreme Court case law, especially McCutcheon v. FEC, ■ — • U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 1434,188 L.Ed.2d 468 (2014), demonstrates that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim.

The Court agrees. The defendants, various members of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, will be enjoined from enforcing § 11.26(9).

To obtain a preliminary injunction, the moving party must show that it has (1) no adequate remedy at law and will suffer irreparable harm if a preliminary injunction is denied and (2) some likelihood of success on the merits. Wis. Right to Life, Inc. v. Barland, 751 F.3d 804, 830 (7th Cir.2014). If this showing is made, the Court “weighs the competing harms to the parties if an injunction is granted or denied and also considers the public interest.” Korte v. Sebelius, 735 F.3d 654, 665 (7th Cir.2013). In the First Amendment context, however, likelihood of success is “usually the decisive factor.” Barland, at 830. This is because the loss of First Amendment freedoms “unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury,” and “injunctions protecting First Amendment freedoms are always in the public interest.” ACLU v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583, 589, 590 (7th Cir.2012).

CRG, as noted, meets the statutory definition of a “committee,” which is “any person other than an individual and any combination of 2 or more persons, permanent or temporary, which makes or accepts eon-tributions or makes disbursements, whether or not engaged in activities which are exclusively political, except that a ‘committee’ does not include a political group’ under this chapter.” § 11.01(4). Committees must comply with extensive regulations, including registering with the GAB, § 11.05(1), having an official treasurer and separate campaign depository account, § 11.05(3), paying an annual filing fee of $100, § 11.055, and filing extensive disclosure reports twice per year, § 11.06. A committee is prohibited from donating more than $500 to any one candidate for the State Assembly, § 11.26(2)(c), as is an individual, § 11.26(l)(c).

Subsection 11.26(9) imposes additional limits on donations. As relevant here, no individual who is a candidate for state or local office may receive “more than 45 percent of the value of the total disbursement level determined under s. 11.31 for the office for which he or she is a candidate dqring any primary and election campaign combined from all committees other than political party and legislative campaign committees subject to a filing requirement, not including any transfer from any.personal campaign committee to another personal campaign committee.” § ll^^Xb).1 Contributions received in excess of those limits must be returned to the donor. § 11.26(11). The “total disbursement level” for State Assembly Candidates is $17,250, § 11.31(l)(f); forty-five percent of that amount is $7,763. Therefore, once a candidate for State Assembly receives $7,763 in donations from committees, the candidate must return any further donations to the donor. Accordingly, [1194]*1194Messrs. Vos and Nygren returned CRG’s entire donation because they had already accepted $7,763 in committee donations; Mr. Kooyenga returned $86, presumably because he had already received $7,599 prior to receiving CRG’s donation.

In McCutcheon, the Supreme Court addressed the aggregate contribution limits in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA), as amended by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). The Court began its analysis, of course, with Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976), and the fundamental distinction in campaign finance law between expenditures and contributions. Expenditure limits “necessarily reduce! ] the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.” 134 S.Ct. at 1444 (quoting Buckley, at 19, 96 S.Ct. 612). Thus, expenditure limits are subject to “the exacting scrutiny applicable to limitations on core First Amendment rights of political expression.” Id. (quoting Buckley, at 44-45, 96 S.Ct. 612). Under exacting scrutiny, the government may regulate protected speech only if the regulation promotes a compelling interest and is the least restrictive means to further the articulated interest. Id.

Contribution limits, as explained in Buckley, “impose a lesser restraint on political speech because they ‘permití ] the symbolic expression of support evidenced by a contribution but do[ ] not in any way infringe the contributor’s freedom to discuss candidates and issues.” Id. (quoting Buckley, at 21, 96 S.Ct. 612). The Court applied a lesser but “still rigorous standard of review” with respect to contributions, under which even a “significant interference with protected rights of political association may be sustained if the State demonstrates a sufficiently important interest and employs means closely drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgement of associational freedoms.” Id. The government’s interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance is a “sufficiently important” government interest for purposes of this lesser standard of review. Id. at 1445. Even so, the Court in McCut-cheon found a “substantial mismatch” between this objective and the “means selected to achieve it,” i.e., the aggregate limit on total individual contributions. Id. at 1446. Thus, the Court declared the aggregate limits unconstitutional because they “do little, if anything, to [combat corruption], while seriously restricting participation in the democratic process.” Id. at 1442.

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Related

CRG Network v. Barland
139 F. Supp. 3d 950 (E.D. Wisconsin, 2015)
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
48 F. Supp. 3d 1191, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124150, 2014 WL 4391193, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/crg-network-v-barland-wied-2014.