Montana Right to Life Ass'n v. Eddleman
| Decision Date | 11 September 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-35924.,00-35924. |
| Parties | MONTANA RIGHT TO LIFE ASSOCIATION; Montana Right to Life Political Action Committee; Julie Daffin, President of Montana Right to Life Association, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert EDDLEMAN, in his official capacity as County Attorney for Stillwater County, Montana, and as a representative of the class of County Attorneys in the State of Montana, et al., Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
James Bopp, Jr., Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom, Terre Haute, IN, for the plaintiff-appellant.
Eric C. Bohnet, Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom, Terre Haute, IN, for the plaintiff-appellant.
Brian M. Morris, Solicitor, Helena, MT, for the defendant-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Montana; Jack D. Shanstrom, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-96-00165-JDS.
Before: ALARCóN and SILVERMAN, Circuit Judges, and TEILBORG, District Judge.*
Opinion by Judge SILVERMAN; Opinion dissenting in part by Judge TEILBORG.
In 1994, Montana voters passed various campaign finance reform measures contained in a ballot proposition known as Initiative 118. At issue in this case are two of the provisions contained in that initiative. The first lowers the maximum dollar amount both political action committees and individuals may contribute to a political candidate; the second limits the aggregate dollar amount a candidate may receive from all PACs combined. Plaintiffs-appellants brought suit to invalidate some of the measures in Initiative 118, claiming they unduly burdened protected speech and associational rights. After a four-day bench trial, the district court made numerous factual findings and struck down portions of Initiative 118 not at issue here. As to the two provisions challenged on appeal, the district judge upheld them as sufficiently tailored to achieving Montana's important interest in preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption in Montana politics.
We affirm. The district court's factual findings are adequately supported by the record and are not clearly erroneous. Applying these facts to the analytical framework set forth in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976) and Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Gov't PAC, 528 U.S. 377, 120 S.Ct. 897, 145 L.Ed.2d 886 (2000), we agree that the two challenged provisions do not violate the First Amendment.
In 1994, Montana voters passed Initiative 118, a campaign finance reform scheme containing, among other provisions, two sections that were subsequently enacted as Mont.Code Ann. (M.C.A.) §§ 13-37-216 and -218. The first provision at issue here, M.C.A. § 13-37-216, imposes limits on individual and political action committee contributions to state candidates, the amount of which varies with the office sought.
Aggregate contributions for each election in a campaign by a political committee or by an individual, other than a candidate, to a candidate are limited as follows:
(i) for candidates filed jointly for the office of governor and lieutenant governor, not to exceed $400;
(ii) for a candidate to be elected for state office in a statewide election, other than the candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, not to exceed $200;
(iii) for a candidate for any other public office, not to exceed $100.
Mont.Code Ann. § 13-37-216(1)(a). Because these limits apply to "each election in a campaign," the amount an individual may contribute to a candidate doubles when the candidate participates in a contested primary. While M.C.A. § 13-37-216 lowered the amount of money that individuals and PACs can contribute to candidates, it increased the amount that political parties are permitted to contribute. Id. § 13-37-216(3).1
The second provision at issue in this appeal, M.C.A. § 13-37-218, limits the amount that a candidate for the state legislature may receive from all political action committees combined. It provides in pertinent part:
A candidate for the state senate may receive no more than $1,000 in total combined monetary contributions from all political committees contributing to the candidate's campaign, and a candidate for the state house of representatives may receive no more than $600 in total combined monetary contributions from all political committees contributing to the candidate's campaign. The limitations in this section must be multiplied by the inflation factor [defined elsewhere]. The resulting figure must be rounded off to the nearest $50 increment.
Id. § 13-37-218. Adjusted for inflation, the PAC contribution ceiling at the time of trial was $2,000 for state senate candidates and $1,250 for state house candidates. Under M.C.A. § 13-37-218, a candidate is permitted to accept additional PAC contributions once the aggregate PAC contribution limit has been reached, provided that he returns funds to earlier PAC donors to make room for later-received contributions. It is important to note that M.C.A. § 13-37-218 does not prevent PACs from contributing to political parties, nor does it prevent PACs from spending money on independent political advertisements or otherwise engaging in political speech. Section 13-37-218 merely limits how much PACs as a group can donate to any one candidate.
The Montana Right to Life Association, Montana Right to Life Political Action Committee, and Julie Daffin, President of the Montana Right to Life Association (collectively, "MRLA") have all made or attempted to make contributions to Montana legislative candidates. MRLA brought this lawsuit in 1996, challenging six of the campaign finance reform measures contained in Initiative I-118.
The district court granted partial summary judgment to MRLA, declaring four of the initiative's provisions unconstitutional, but left for trial the constitutionality of M.C.A. §§ 13-37-216 and -218. After a four-day bench trial, the district court issued findings of fact and conclusions of law, upholding the two provisions at issue here. The district court relied in part on the testimony of Jonathon Motl, the drafter of the ballot initiative, that I-118 affects only the largest contributions to the various offices. The judge found that the limits imposed by M.C.A. § 13-37-216 "were in the upper 10% of contributions for the particular offices." That is, nine out of ten donations to political candidates were unaffected by this measure.
The district court also found that M.C.A. § 13-37-218, the aggregate PAC contribution limit provision, had the effect of limiting the amount the average candidate received from PACs to about 29% of all contributions received. The court found that, at the time of trial, state house candidates continued to raise an average of $4,464.87, and state senate candidates continued to raise an average of $6,869.04, despite the limits imposed by M.C.A. § 13-37-218. The evidence further showed that the cost of a House race in Montana was between $3,000 and $7,000, and a Senate race between $6,000 and $9,000. The district court thus found that MRLA was unable to demonstrate that the limits imposed left candidates with insufficient funds to run an effective campaign: "[O]utside of bald, conclusory allegations that their campaigns would have been more `effective' had they been able to raise more money, none of the witnesses offered any specifics as to why their campaigns were not effective." It further found that "there is no indication that the contribution limitations imposed would have any dramatically adverse effect on the funding of campaigns and political associations...."
Applying the standards announced by the Supreme Court in Shrink Missouri the district court ultimately ruled that the State of Montana's political contribution limits were "closely drawn to match the constitutionally sufficient interest in preventing campaign corruption and the appearance thereof." The limits "are not so radical in effect as to render political association ineffective, drive the sound of a candidate's voice below the level of notice, and render contributions pointless." MRLA appeals this ruling.
We review the constitutionality of state statutes de novo. California Democratic Party v. Jones, 169 F.3d 646, 647 (9th Cir.1999), rev'd on other grounds, 530 U.S. 567, 120 S.Ct. 2402, 147 L.Ed.2d 502 (2000); Arizona Right to Life Political Action Comm. v. Bayless, 320 F.3d 1002, 1007 (9th Cir.2003). We review the district court's findings of fact for clear error. Montana Chamber of Commerce v. Argenbright, 226 F.3d 1049, 1054 (9th Cir.2000) (); Service Employees Int'l Union v. Fair Political Practices Comm'n, 955 F.2d 1312, 1316 (9th Cir.1992) (same). The district court's application of the law to those facts is reviewed de novo. Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of the United States, 466 U.S. 485, 499, 104 S.Ct. 1949, 80 L.Ed.2d 502 (1984).
The starting place in the analysis of the constitutionality of campaign finance reform legislation is Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976). Buckley involved a challenge to the Federal Election Campaign Act. The Act (1) limited individual contributions to any single candidate to $1,000 per election, with an overall annual limitation of $25,000 by any contributor; (2) limited independent expenditures by individuals and groups relative to a clearly identified candidate to $1,000 per year; (3) subjected campaign spending by candidates and political parties to prescribed limits; and (4) required public disclosure of all contributions and expenditures above defined limits.
The Buckley Court held that although the provisions limiting...
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