Bill Powers Quoted on Supreme Court Ruling on Nonprofit Donor Disclosure

Bill Powers was quoted in the Law360 Tax Authority story, “California Donor Info Ruling May Spur Campaign Finance Challenges” (subscription required). The article provides an overview of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in the Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California and Thomas More Law Center v. Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California cases. Law360 writes that in these cases, the Court used “an exacting scrutiny standard to strike down California's donor disclosure requirement [which] may portend challenges to campaign finance disclosure rules and a period of uncertainty as lower courts navigate that clarified standard.”

Commenting on the impact of the ruling, Bill said, “In light of [the] decision, I expect courts examining campaign finance disclosure laws to more heavily scrutinize whether these laws are narrowly tailored to limit disclosure of donor information to information that actually serves a governmental interest and for the courts to require specific evidence from Congress, the Federal Election Commission or the states to that effect.”