State v. Alaska Civil Liberties Union

• Decision Date: 16 April 1999
• Docket Number: No. S-8778,S-8778
• Citation: 978 P.2d 597
• Parties: STATE of Alaska, Appellant, v. ALASKA CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, Appellee.
• Court: Alaska Supreme Court

Page 597

978 P.2d 597

STATE of Alaska, Appellant, v. ALASKA CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, Appellee.

No. S-8778.

Supreme Court of Alaska.

April 16, 1999.

David T. Jones and Jan Hart DeYoung, Assistant Attorneys General, Anchorage, and Bruce M. Botelho, Attorney General, Juneau, for Appellant.

Jonathan B. Rubini, Foster, Pepper, Rubini & Reeves, L.L.C., Anchorage, and Suzanne S. La Pierre, Anchorage, for Appellee.

Kyle W. Parker, Patton, Boggs, L.L.P., Anchorage, and Benjamin L. Ginsberg, John C. Martin, and Donald F. McGahn II, Patton, Boggs, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Alaska State Chamber of Commerce.

Before: MATTHEWS, Chief Justice, COMPTON, EASTAUGH, FABE, and BRYNER, Justices.

OPINION

EASTAUGH, Justice.

I. INTRODUCTION

The Alaska legislature reformed Alaska's campaign financing statutes in 1996 by enacting Chapter 48 SLA 1996 (the Act), also known as Senate Bill (SB) 191. ¹ The Alaska Civil Liberties Union (AkCLU) sued the State of Alaska, seeking a judgment declaring that parts of the Act violated rights of free speech and association by restricting campaign contributions and expenditures for state and local elections. Accepting AkCLU's arguments, the superior court held that SB 191 was unconstitutional. Because we hold that the State had a legitimate interest in preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption in state election campaigns and that most of the challenged provisions were narrowly tailored to achieve that interest, we hold that the challenged provisions, with limited exceptions discussed below, do not offend rights of speech and association. Reading the bans on non-group entities' expenditures and contributions narrowly, we reverse generally the judgment declaring the Act unconstitutional. But we affirm as to the invalidity of the pre-election year and legislative session contribution bans.

II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

The legislature's concern about the effect of undue influence on the work of government- --first expressed in a 1913 statute requiring lobbyists to register ²--has reached comprehensive scope in the last quarter-century. In 1974 the Alaska legislature enacted statutes regulating state election campaigns. Individuals were prohibited from contributing more than $1,000 annually to a candidate other than themselves. ³ No cash contribution exceeding $100 could be made to a candidate, ⁴ and no expenditure promoting a candidate exceeding $100 could be made unless a written receipt was filed with the state's election commission. ⁵ Candidates' total expenditures in campaigns for various offices were limited by formulas relating to the office sought and the population of the constituency area, and, for house and senate seats, the number of seats in the district, although the legislature later repealed this provision. ⁶ In 1975 the legislature expanded the $1,000 annual candidate contribution limit to cover groups, political committees, businesses, corporations, and labor unions. ⁷

In 1996 the Alaska legislature comprehensively reformed Alaska's campaign financing laws by enacting SB 191. It passed the bill not long before voters were to vote on an initiative to reform campaign finance. The State asserts here, as it did below, that SB 191 was a response to the initiative and to public concerns about actual and apparent corruption in Alaska politics. The Act recited these legislative findings:

(3) organized special interests are responsible for raising a significant portion of all election campaign funds and may thereby gain an undue influence over election campaigns and elected officials, particularly incumbents ...

....

(5) because, under existing laws, candidates are completely free to convert campaign funds to personal income, there is great potential for bribery and political corruption. ⁸

The Act also expressed the following purpose: "It is the purpose of this Act to substantially revise Alaska's election campaign finance laws in order to restore the public's trust in the electoral process and to foster good government." ⁹

Senate Bill 191, while less restrictive in some areas, was more comprehensive in scope than the initiative it sought to supplant. Unlike the initiative, SB 191 included not only contribution limits and prohibitions, and expenditure prohibitions, but time restrictions, restrictions on the use of campaign assets, restrictions on the use of gaming proceeds, exemptions from reporting requirements, campaign lending restrictions, and standards of criminal conduct. ¹⁰

Senate Bill 191 became effective January 1, 1997. ¹¹

AkCLU sued the State in July 1997. It complained that the Act violated both the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, and article I, section 5 of the Alaska Constitution. It sought declaratory and injunctive relief specifically challenging the validity of the Act's provisions containing (1) limits on campaign contributions; (2) bans on certain types of campaign contributions; (3) restrictions on the timing of contributions; (4) restrictions, which AkCLU characterized as expenditure limitations, on campaign funds carry-forwards and inter-candidate contributions; and (5) bans on independent expenditures by certain organizations.

AkCLU moved for complete summary judgment, relying heavily on the United States Supreme Court's opinion in Buckley v. Valeo, which requires a threat of corruption or the appearance of corruption to justify regulation of campaign speech. ¹² AkCLU submitted no factual evidence. The State opposed AkCLU's motion, cross-moved for summary judgment, and submitted more than 1800 pages of documents. The documents included: independent studies; a study commissioned by the state senate; fifteen affidavits, including affidavits from former Governors Steve Cowper, Jay Hammond, and Walter Hickel, and former house member David Finkelstein; news clippings; Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) reports; and campaign disclosure records. AkCLU's reply attached the affidavit of an advertising firm account manager. AkCLU later submitted two additional affidavits in support of its motion for preliminary injunction.

The State's evidence discussed the proposed campaign finance initiative and the drive to place it on the ballot in 1996. The initiative contained a finding, as noted above, that "[o]rganized special interests are responsible for raising a significant portion of all campaign funds, and may thereby gain an undue influence over campaigns and elected officials, particularly incumbents."

Michael Frank, chair of Campaign Finance Reform Now!, the ballot measure organizers, affied that over 30,000 people signed the petition for the ballot initiative. Frank said he heard frequent comments from citizens who said that "after candidates got elected they 'went bad' or 'became corrupt' or 'got crooked' or 'went on the take' and began accepting contributions and favors from the interests they were supposed to regulate." Frank stated his personal view that the existing system "reeked of corruption."

Michele Keck, who also collected signatures for the initiative, affied that she got involved because "[t]he decisions of elected officials appear too often to be linked to campaign contributors [rather] than to the merits of the issues." She said she collected approximately 5,000 signatures for the initiative, and her impression was that others who signed the petition felt the same way she did.

David Finkelstein, a former state house member, affied that he personally had gathered over a thousand signatures for the campaign reform initiative. "The constant refrain I heard from citizens," he said, "was that the Legislature was owned by special interests. This perception existed even among people who would not sign the initiative, who would often state that nothing was going to change the corruption caused by big money."

The State also introduced a report commissioned by the Alaska State Senate and produced by the Josephson Institute in 1990. The report discussed the opinions of lobbyists, legislators, and state public officials on legislative ethics in Alaska. The researchers found that: "the level of trust and confidence in the integrity of the legislature is disturbingly low"; the low level of trust is attributable at least in part to "calculated evasions of the purpose and spirit of campaign laws"; and calculated evasions of the campaign laws were, according to fifty percent of legislators and sixty-eight percent of public officials, a serious problem calling for greater regulation.

Following oral argument, the superior court granted summary judgment to AkCLU. The court primarily relied upon Buckley, and gave several reasons for its result: the State had not introduced evidence of "real harm"; SB 191's contribution limits are impermissibly "differen[t] in kind" from the Buckley limits; and "leveling the playing field" is an inadequate justification for restricting campaign contributions. Concluding that the valid and invalid provisions were "so inextricably intertwined" that the valid provisions could not be severed and preserved, the court invalidated the entire Act, including those provisions AkCLU did not explicitly challenge, as unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

The State appeals.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

We review grants of summary judgment de novo. ¹³ To obtain summary judgment, the moving party must prove the absence of genuine factual disputes and its entitlement to judgment. ¹⁴

If the movant makes a prima facie showing that he or she is entitled to judgment on the established facts as a matter of law, the opposing party must demonstrate that a genuine issue of fact exists to be litigated by showing that it can produce admissible evidence reasonably tending to dispute the movant's evidence. ¹⁵

When a court grants summary judgment without stating its reasons, we presume that the court ruled in the movant's favor on...