Judge rejects anti-abortion group's challenge of Vermont campaign law

By The Associated Press

09.10.98

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MONTPELIER, Vt. — A federal judge upheld Vermont's new campaign finance law yesterday, but sought to allow advocacy groups more leeway to disseminate their views without making campaign finance reports.

The effort by U.S. District Judge William Sessions III fell far short of satisfying the Vermont Right to Life Committee, which had sued to overturn the state's 16-month-old campaign finance law.

A campaign finance reform advocate called Sessions' decision a major victory, saying it largely confirmed one of the most voter-friendly campaign finance laws in the country.

"This is clearly from our point of view an important victory for people who support campaign finance reform," said Anthony Pollina, policy adviser with the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

At issue was a law passed by the Legislature in 1997 that was designed to shine a spotlight on so-called "soft-money" political spending.

Soft money is spending that goes from advocacy groups not directly to specific candidates but to push issues that can work for or against those candidates' elections. Thus, they can have a big impact on elections without it being made clear to the public who is paying how much to push which political buttons.

Debate over the law has centered on two competing First Amendment values.

Backers say it's designed to get more information to voters about who's paying for which political messages, and that an informed electorate is one of the First Amendment's main goals.

Opponents say the law's reporting requirements inhibit political speech by saddling speakers with bureaucratic burdens of reporting expenditures.

The judge summed up the arguments this way: "Vermont has a crucial interest in curbing the excesses of soft-money spending. Today's ruling seeks to give force to the equally weighty First Amendment principles on both sides of the controversy."

He described those principles as "disclosure to the public of information bearing on the source of funds for political advertising; and dissemination of information concerning candidates and their positions free of undue governmental interference."

Sessions said in his 31-page ruling that the law needed to be narrowed to cover only express support for specific candidates and not just implicit support. He cited Vermont Right to Life's voter guides and mass mailings and said they did not run afoul of the law.

"Neither the voter guides nor any other VRLC-sponsored document submitted to the court expressly call for a candidate's election or defeat," the judge wrote.

But Mary Hahn Beerworth, executive director of Vermont Right to Life, said her group would refrain from publishing voter guides or other, similar materials for fear that the attorney general's office or a state's attorney might adopt an interpretation of the law that could put the group in legal jeopardy.

In past elections, VRLC has sent a questionnaire to candidates soliciting their views on abortion and related issues. The group then published candidate answers without urging a vote for or against the candidate. "We let the voters make their own decisions," Beerworth said.

The 1997 law calls for civil fines of up to $10,000 for violators, and that's enough for VRLC to continue its moratorium on publishing its materials, Beerworth said. "We won't be doing it as long as there are substantial fines and penalties."

She said her group would appeal Sessions' ruling to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Attorney General William Sorrell, whose office defended the state against the lawsuit, said he was pleased with the court's ruling. But he said it would remain for future cases to determine the long-term workings of the law.

"It'll be future cases, future ads, future election cycles that will ... fill in the details of specifically what's OK," Sorrell said.

Another section of the law, one imposing a 5 percent tax on Statehouse lobbying activities, also is the target of a lawsuit seeking to overturn it. That suit, by a group of lobbyists, is pending.