Big Victory for Indiana Right to Life in Challenge Against Limits on Contributions to Super PACs

Conservative Super Lawyer James Bopp, Jr. has just informed us that last Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Indiana Right to Life Victory Fund (“IRTL Victory Fund”) that an Indiana law that limits corporations from contributing to PACs for independent expenditures violates the First Amendment.

IRTL Victory Fund, a PAC that only does independent expenditures because their expenditures are not coordinated with a candidate, and does not give money to the candidates, and Sarkes Tarzian, Inc., a corporation wishing to donate to it, had argued that Indiana’s Election Code violates the First Amendment by prohibiting corporations from contributing to PACs for independent expenditures. The court found this argument compelling and barred enforcement of the laws.

The Indiana Right to Life Victory Fund and longtime conservative donors Sarkes Tarzian, Inc. had requested a preliminary injunction in the Indiana Southern District Court against state law that they read to prohibit corporate contributions earmarked for independent expenditures.

Following a lower court’s incorrect decision and an appeal by IRTL Victory Fund, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals asked the Indiana Supreme Court to say whether Indiana law limited corporate contributions for independent expenditures by IRTL Victory Fund. The Indiana Supreme Court agreed with IRTL Victory Fund’s interpretation of the law, declaring that the Indiana laws do indeed prohibit contributions to PACs for independent expenditures.

According to reporting by The Indiana Lawyer, according to court records, Sarkes Tarzian, Inc. is an Indiana-based television and radio company that wanted to make a $10,000 donation to the Indiana Right to Life Victory Fund, a super PAC.

Unlike ordinary political action committees, which accept contributions and then, in turn, give money directly to candidates, party committees, or ballot-initiative movements, super PACs spend the money themselves to advocate for or against a candidate, party, or initiative.

Sarkes Tarzian and the Fund invoked 42 U.S.C § 1983 in a challenge to two provisions of Indiana law (Ind. Code §§ 3-9- 2-4 & 3-9-2-5) that they read to prohibit corporate contributions earmarked for independent expenditures.

The district court denied their request for a preliminary injunction.

Although the court viewed the challenged provisions as likely unconstitutional under the reasoning in Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), it found no credible threat that Indiana officials would enforce those provisions to limit a company like Sarkes Tarzian from contributing to a super PAC like the fund.

The 7th Circuit, in its opinion Thursday, stated that the state had asked the court to dismiss the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

The appellate court rejected that argument and found that Sarkes Tarzian and the fund did have standing to seek an injunction.

“The Indiana Election Code, we now know, prohibits independent expenditures like the earmarked $10,000 contribution that Sarkes Tarzian planned to make to the Fund. See Ind. Code § 3-9-2-5. The Fund has credibly alleged that the statute poses a threat of enforcement latent in the statute’s existence and traceable to its enforcement,” the 7th Circuit stated.

The appellate court noted that the state had vowed not to enforce the unlawful campaign finance restrictions against the fund, adding that “all an injunction would do is bind the defendants to that promise.”

“Compare the absence of any concrete harm to the defendants with the chill that the risk of enforcement might place on the political activities of the Fund and its donors were an injunction not issued. In the end, all factors point in favor of issuing the injunction sought by the Fund,” the 7th Circuit concluded.

That decision made the federal appeals court’s job easy according to attorney James Bopp, Jr., “The Indiana Supreme Court’s decision all but resolves this appeal,” said the 7th Circuit. That is because the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly made it clear that the only thing that can justify contribution limits is the threat of “quid-pro-quo corruption,” that is, the exchange of money for political favors, and has repeatedly held that contributions for independent expenditures do not create such a threat. As a result, limits on corporate contributions for independent expenditures—like those at issue here—are unconstitutional.

In so ruling, the court rejected the government’s argument that IRTL Victory Fund had no reason to be in court because it had not been punished under the challenged laws. To the contrary, the court of appeals stated that the laws’ very existence created a threat of punishment. And while some, but not all, of the officials charged with enforcing the challenged laws had said that they would not enforce the laws in that way, the court agreed with IRTL Victory Fund that these limited and illusory “just trust us” promises, not backed by any official action, provided cold comfort. As IRTL Victory Fund had argued, the court found that such promises are meaningless since they do not control what future officeholders might do—meaning that, absent this favorable court decision, IRTL Victory Fund would have been only one change of office (or of mind) away from having these laws enforced against it.

According to James Bopp, Jr. of The Bopp Law Firm PC, lead counsel for Plaintiff IRTL Victory Fund, “This ruling is an important victory for free speech. Courts dealing with unconstitutional laws like these should reject the attempt by government bureaucrats to justify silencing political candidates, parties, and contributors with nothing but meaningless promises in the face of draconian, anti-First Amendment laws.”

Click here to read the Court’s opinion.

• National Right to Life

• Indiana Right to Life

• Indiana SB 1

• Dobbs decision

• Supreme Court

• State abortion laws

• James Bopp, Jr.

• criminal penalties

• Abortion on Demand

• immunity for illegal abortion

• chemical abortion clinics

• First Amendment

• Independent Expenditures

• Sarkes Tarzian, Inc.

• IRTL Victory Fund