Right to Life seeks Right to Speak - national media release

Posted on May 20, 2008

The Ohio Right to Life Society filed a lawsuit today in federal court challenging an Ohio law mandating that the group report all contributors who contribute $200 or more to the group so that it can run advertisements mentioning the name of a political candidate within 30 days of an election.

"The government cannot simply compile a database of citizens' political activities without providing a compelling reason," said Stephen Hoersting, vice president of the Center for Competitive Politics and an attorney representing the group. "Compelled disclosure is supposed to put sunlight on the operations of government, not glare on the operations of citizens." 

Ohio Right to Life is also challenging the current state law that bars citizen organizations from using funds from their general treasury to run advertisements mentioning the name of a political candidate within 30 days of an election. 

Ohio Right to Life, represented by attorneys from Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan, & Aronoff and the Center for Competitive Politics, argue in court filings that the Ohio state law barring it from running advertisements mentioning candidates' names close to an election is impermissible in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision last summer in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life (WRTL).

In that case, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that political speech can only be regulated if the advertisement contains "express advocacy" or "is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate."

Ohio Right to Life's challenge to the disclosure requirements were not addressed by the Supreme Court in the WRTL case.

 

"But once an advertisement is deemed to be neither express advocacy, or its functional equivalent, the justifications for forced disclosure disappear," Hoersting explained. "Reporting requirements can have a chilling effect on citizen speech, and at the very least, they impose a complex and time-consuming burden on citizen groups."

Attorney William Todd of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan, & Aronoff filed Ohio Right to Life Society Inc. v. Ohio Election Commission in the U.S District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

The filing can be found at http://www.campaignfreedom.org/docLib/20080520_ORTL_Court_Filing.pdf