OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld Washington state’s campaign disclosure laws, saying the requirements dont’t violate the First Amendment rights of a group that didn’t want to disclose their donors in a 2008 opposition campaign to an assisted suicide ballot measure.
In Tuesday’s ruling, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that rejected Human Life of Washington’s contention that state’s disclosure requirements for political committees, independent expenditures, and political advertising were unconstitutional.
Human Life had argued that it shouldn’t have to register with the state as a political action committee, because it wants to sponsor ads about the issue of assisted suicide — not ads explicitly about Initiative 1000.
