Thompson v. Hebdon

Decision Date30 July 2021
Docket NumberNo. 17-35019,17-35019
Citation7 F.4th 811
Parties David THOMPSON ; Aaron Downing; Jim Crawford, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Heather HEBDON, in Her Official Capacity as the Executive Director of the Alaska Public Offices Commission; Richard Stillie; Irene Catalone; Anne Helzer; Robert Clift; and Jim McDermott, in their official capacities as members of the Alaska Public Offices Commission, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Erin Murphy (argued), Paul D. Clement, and Lauren N. Beebe, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Washington, D.C.; Kevin G. Clarkson, Matthew C. Clarkson, Robin O. Brena, and Laura S. Gould, Brena Bell & Walker P.C., Anchorage, Alaska; for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Laura Fox (argued), Senior Assistant Attorney General; Tregarrick R. Taylor, Deputy Attorney General; Department of Law, Anchorage, Alaska, for Defendants-Appellees.

Brian A. Sutherland, Reed Smith LLP, San Francisco, California; M. Patrick Yingling, Reed Smith LLP, Chicago, Illinois; Brent Ferguson and Daniel I. Weiner, Brennan Center for Justice, New York, New York; for Amicus Curiae Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.

Tara Malloy and Megan P. McAllen, Campaign Legal Center, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Campaign Legal Center.

Ronald A. Fein and John C. Bonifaz, Free Speech for People, Newton, Massachusetts, for Amici Curiae Free Speech for People and Professor David Fontana.

Tara Malloy, Noah B. Lindell, Megan P. McAllen, and Mark P. Gaber, Campaign Legal Center, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Campaign Legal Center.

Before: Sidney R. Thomas, Chief Judge, and Consuelo M. Callahan and Carlos T. Bea, Circuit Judges.

Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Chief Judge Thomas

ORDER

The opinion filed on November 27, 2018, and published at 909 F.3d 1027, is withdrawn, and replaced by the opinion filed concurrently with this order.

CALLAHAN, Circuit Judge:

We must decide whether an Alaska law regulating campaign contributions violates the First Amendment. At issue are Alaska's limits on contributions made by individuals to candidates, individuals to election-related groups, and political parties to candidates, and also its limit on the total funds a candidate may receive from out-of-state residents. The district court upheld all four provisions against a constitutional challenge by three individuals and a subdivision of the Alaska Republican Party. See Thompson v. Hebdon , 909 F.3d 1027, 1032–33 (9th Cir. 2018). In a prior opinion, we affirmed except as to the nonresident limit. Id . at 1031. Plaintiffs filed a petition for certiorari. See Thompson v. Hebdon , ––– U.S. ––––, 140 S. Ct. 348, 351, 205 L.Ed.2d 245 (2019). The Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion granting the petition, vacating our judgment, and remanding the case for us to "revisit" whether the individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group limits "are consistent with [the Supreme Court's] First Amendment precedents," in particular Randall v. Sorrell , 548 U.S. 230, 126 S.Ct. 2479, 165 L.Ed.2d 482 (2006). Id . Following remand, we received supplemental briefs from the parties and an amicus, and we heard oral argument. We now issue a revised opinion. Our resolution of the challenges to the political-party-to-candidate and nonresident limits remains the same, affirming the district court's decision upholding the former but reversing the decision upholding the latter. But we now reverse the district court's decision upholding the individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group limits.

I
A

Alaska has long regulated campaign contributions to political candidates. In 1974, Alaska enacted a statute prohibiting individuals from contributing more than $1,000 annually to a candidate. See Alaska v. Alaska Civil Liberties Union , 978 P.2d 597, 601 (Alaska 1999). In 1996, the Alaska Legislature enacted a revised campaign finance law "to restore the public's trust in the electoral process and to foster good government." 1996 Alaska Sess. Laws ch. 48 § 1(b). Among other things, the law lowered the annual limit on contributions by individuals to a candidate from $1,000 to $500 and set a $500 limit on annual contributions by individuals to a group that is not a political party. Id . §§ 10–11. The law also set aggregate limits on the amount candidates could accept from nonresidents of Alaska. In 2003, the Alaska legislature revised the 1996 law by raising the individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group limits from $500 to $1,000. 2003 Alaska Sess. Laws ch. 108, §§ 8–10.

In 2006, a ballot initiative—Ballot Measure 1 (the "2006 Initiative")—proposed a further revision of the limits. 2006 Alaska Laws Initiative Meas. 1, § 1. The 2006 Initiative, which is the law at issue here, returned the individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group limits to their pre-2003 levels of $500 per year. Alaska Stat. § 15.13.070(b)(1). It also capped the amount a non-political party group could contribute to a candidate at $1,000, restricted the amount candidates could receive from nonresidents to $3,000 per year, and limited the amount a political party—including its subdivisions—could contribute to a candidate. Alaska Stat. §§ 15.13.070(c) & (d), 15.13.072(a)(2) & (e)(3), 15.13.400(15). The 2006 Initiative passed with 73% of the popular vote.

B

Plaintiffs are three individuals and a subdivision of the Alaska Republican Party. In 2015, Plaintiffs brought a First Amendment challenge against Defendants, Alaska public officials, targeting, as relevant to this appeal, (1) the $500 annual limit on an individual contribution to a political candidate, (2) the $500 limit on an individual contribution to a non-political party group, (3) annual limits on what a political party—including its subdivisions—may contribute to a candidate, and (4) the annual aggregate limit on contributions a candidate may accept from nonresidents of Alaska. Plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that each of the challenged provisions is unconstitutional, a permanent injunction prohibiting enforcement of the challenged provisions, and costs and attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Thompson v. Dauphinais , 217 F. Supp. 3d 1023, 1027 (D. Alaska 2016).

Two of the Plaintiffs, Aaron Downing and Jim Crawford, are Alaska residents who wanted to, but legally could not, contribute more than $500 to individual candidates running for state or municipal office. Crawford also wanted to give more than $500 to a non-political party group. David Thompson is a Wisconsin resident whose brother-in-law is former Alaska State Representative Wes Keller. Thompson sent Keller a $100 check for his campaign in 2015, but Keller returned the check because the campaign had already hit the $3,000 nonresident limit. Finally, District 18 is a subdivision of the Alaska Republican Party that was limited in the amount it could give to Amy Demboski's mayoral campaign due to Alaska's aggregate limit on the amount a campaign can accept from a political party.

After granting Alaska's motion for partial summary judgment for lack of standing on certain of Plaintiffs’ claims, the district court held a seven-day bench trial. In November 2016, the district court issued a decision rejecting all of Thompson's remaining claims. Thompson , 217 F. Supp. 3d at 1027–40. Applying the intermediate scrutiny standard for evaluating contribution limitations set forth in Montana Right to Life Ass'n v. Eddleman , 343 F.3d 1085 (9th Cir. 2003), the district court determined that each of the four challenged provisions was aimed at the "important state interest" of combating quid pro quo corruption (or its appearance) and was "closely drawn" to meet that interest. Thompson , 217 F. Supp. 3d at 1040. Plaintiffs timely appealed.

On appeal, our prior opinion analyzed whether those limits furthered a "sufficiently important state interest" and were "closely drawn" to that end. Thompson , 909 F.3d at 1034 (quoting Eddleman , 343 F.3d at 1092 ) (internal quotation marks omitted). We recognized that the Supreme Court's decisions in Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm'n , 558 U.S. 310, 130 S.Ct. 876, 175 L.Ed.2d 753 (2010), and McCutcheon v. Fed. Election Comm'n , 572 U.S. 185, 134 S.Ct. 1434, 188 L.Ed.2d 468 (2014), narrow "the type of state interest that justifies a First Amendment intrusion on political contributions" to combating "actual quid pro quo corruption or its appearance." Thompson , 909 F.3d at 1034. We concluded that the individual-to-candidate contribution limit " ‘focuses narrowly on the state's interest,’ ‘leaves the contributor free to affiliate with a candidate,’ and ‘allows the candidate to amass sufficient resources to wage an effective campaign,’ " and thus survived First Amendment scrutiny. Thompson , 909 F.3d at 1036–39 (quoting Eddleman , 343 F.3d at 1092 ) (alterations omitted). We then found the individual-to-group contribution limit valid as a tool for preventing circumvention of the individual-to-candidate limit. See id. at 1039–40. We also upheld the political party-to-candidate limit. Id . at 1040. However, we reversed as to the nonresident limit. While we found that the first three restrictions narrowly tailored to prevent quid pro quo corruption or its appearance and thus did not impermissibly infringe constitutional rights, we found that the nonresident limit did not target an "important state interest" and therefore violated the First Amendment. Id . at 1040–43.1

C

The Supreme Court remanded, taking issue with our failure to apply Randall to the two $500 limits on individuals to candidates and election-related groups.2 Thompson , 140 S. Ct. at 350. In Randall , the Supreme Court "invalidated a Vermont law that limited individual contributions on a per-election basis to: $400 to a candidate for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, or other statewide office; $300 to a candidate for state senator; and $200 to a candidate for state representative." See id . Justice Breyer's opinion...

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