A federal judge on Monday rejected the conservative group Citizens United’s effort to air a documentary critical of Colorado Democrats without meeting a state law to disclose its donors.
Citizens United and its “Rocky Mountain Heist” film did not constitute electioneering communications. The organization, whose landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court softened contribution limits, sought protection in U.S. District Court in Denver to show the film, . Attorney Ted Olson, the former U.S. solicitor general, argued the case but Judge R. Brooke Jackson expressed skepticism.
“The case presented today is rather straightforward,” Jackson wrote in the order. “Citizens United argues that its free speech rights are violated when the law requires it to disclose its donors while effectively exempting traditional print media and broadcasters from the same requirement. It contends that Colorado’s reporting and disclosure exemptions are a form of content- or viewpoint-based discrimination compelling the invalidation of the entire disclosure scheme. I am not convinced and therefore deny plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction.”
A spokesman for Citizens United said it is still reviewing the ruling and couldn’t comment about its next steps. The case is widely seen as a potential starting point for a prolonged court battle about how deserves to qualify as media in the ever-shifting digital communication arena.
, Citizens United repeatedly suggested the disclosure limits posed a burden on its First Amendment rights, but Jackson said such laws are key to the public’s knowledge of an election message.
“The marketplace of ideas does not function as well if listeners are unable to discern the private interests behind speech when determining how much weight to afford it,” Jackson wrote. “Aware of this problem, in 1976 the Supreme Court declared that “disclosure requirements certainly in most applications appear to be the least restrictive means of curbing the evils of campaign ignorance and corruption that Congress found to exist.” Buckley, 424 U.S. at 68. Thirty-four years later, the Citizens United Court reaffirmed this sentiment by a vote of eight to one. See 558 U.S. at 366–71. Today, Citizens United comes before this Court hoping to unravel forty years of precedent by reframing the issue as one of content and viewpoint discrimination. The Court is not persuaded.”
