Advancing American Freedom led a coalition of 27 co-amici in Alaska Policy Forum v.Alaska Public Offices Commission, a case challenging Alaska’s unconstitutional donor disclosure regime that requires nonprofit organizations engaged in election-related speech to include sensitive donor information in the covered public communications.
Alaska Policy Forum (APF) sought to provide Alaskans with information relating to ranked-choice voting. Only after APF began speaking about ranked-choice voting, the issue became the subject of a ballot measure. Alaska requires organizations engaging in issue advocacy to include their top donors’ names and principal places of business or states of residence on election-related communications. Despite never mentioning the ballot measure in any of its communications, the state determined that APF triggered the state’s reporting and disclosure requirements for election-related speech.
“The freedom to speak about ideas and to associate with others to spread those ideas, and to do so anonymously, has always been an integral part of American liberty and self-government. The American Revolution itself was a marriage of freedom of speech and freedom of association in which colonists banded together because of their shared ideas about liberty and government,” said AAF General Counsel J. Marc Wheat. “Alaska’s donor disclosure law chills free speech and free association. It undermines a fundamental pillar of American liberty and cannot survive heightened scrutiny. The Court should grant certiorari in this case and rule for Petitioners.”