The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear Alaska residents’ challenge of a ballot measure that requires public disclosure of political donations. The plaintiffs argue that the requirement violates their constitutional right to free speech.

The plaintiffs initially requested a preliminary injunction to prevent the provisions of Ballot Measure 2 from taking effect. These provisions include an “individual-donor contribution-reporting requirement,” which stipulates that within twenty-four hours, election donors must report the sources of their contributions if they exceed $2,000 annually; and a political advertisement-related requirement, which requires “the disclosure of certain identifying information about donors.”

Whether the respective provisions of Ballot Measure 2 violate the First Amendment remained in the plaintiff’s petition to the US Supreme Court. One of the plaintiffs’ reasons for granting the petition included how Ballot Measure 2’s duplicative disclosure provision is not narrowly tailored according to exacting scrutiny since it requires reporting within 24 hours even though the law already requires reporting that same information.

The President of the Liberty Justice Center, Jacob Huebert, counsel for the plaintiffs, explained regarding the petition to the US Supreme Court that “People who want to speak out on political issues should be free to say what they want to say—not forced to say what the government wants them to say.”

In the defendants’ brief in opposition to the plaintiffs’ petition for a writ of certiorari, the defendants argued the plaintiff’s petition should be denied on one of the grounds that the court of appeal’s decision was correct since it applied the correct legal standard of exacting scrutiny. The defendants argued that Ballot Measure 2’s disclosure requirements are a “less restrictive alternative to flat bans on certain types” of speech.

Doug Smith and other Alaskan residents, the plaintiffs, first brought the case against members of the Alaska Public Offices Commission, the defendants, following the approval of Ballot Measure 2, which became law on February 28, 2021. The US District Court of Alaska refused to grant the preliminary injunction, accepting that the state has two important interests necessitating the Ballot Measure 2 provisions, including ensuring an “informed electorate”; and ensuring the state’s interest in deterring corruption with more public disclosure.

At the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the court upheld the district court’s ruling and found the Ballot Measure 2 provisions to be subject to “exacting scrutiny.” When applying this level of scrutiny, the court found both the reporting and political advertisement requirements to be “insufficiently burdensome and sufficiently tailored.” Thus, the court found the provisions do not violate the First Amendment.

The Liberty Justice Center has filed similar lawsuits on donor privacy that challenge the freedom of speech in cases involving the states of Montana, New Jersey, and New York. In the decision in Montana, the court denied the plaintiff’s claim for summary judgement, but granted the state’s claim for summary judgment. Both the claims initiated in New Jersey and New York were voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff, Liberty Justice Center.