# Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (July 1, 2021) **Citation:** 594 U.S. 595 (2021) **Vote:** 6-3 **Decided:** July 1, 2021 **Statute challenged:** California Attorney General disclosure regulation (IRS Form 990 Schedule B) *Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta* struck down a **California donor-disclosure regulation** that required charitable organizations soliciting donations in California to submit unredacted IRS Form 990 Schedule B (which identifies major donors) to the state Attorney General's office. The decision signals further Roberts Court hostility to disclosure regimes — including the *Buckley v. Valeo* (1976) disclosure-survives holding that has been the one major regulatory mechanism not yet substantially dismantled. The case had two plaintiff organizations: - **[[Americans for Prosperity Foundation]]** — the 501(c)(3) charitable affiliate of the [[Koch Network]]'s principal political-advocacy organization - **Thomas More Law Center** — a Christian-conservative public-interest law firm Both organizations objected to providing Schedule B donor information to California's Attorney General even though Schedule B is filed with the IRS for federal tax purposes. California's claimed justification was charity oversight — preventing fraud and self-dealing by charitable organizations. ## The Holding [[Chief Justice Roberts]] wrote for a 6-3 majority (Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett), striking down the California disclosure regulation as facially unconstitutional. The reasoning: 1. **Disclosure regulations burden [[First Amendment]] associational rights.** Requiring an organization to disclose its donors imposes a burden on associational freedom, even when the disclosure is not made public (California's regulation required submission to the AG's office but not public disclosure; the AG's office had nonetheless leaked Schedule B information in past cases). 2. **"Exacting scrutiny" requires narrow tailoring.** Disclosure regulations must be "narrowly tailored" to a substantial governmental interest — not merely "substantially related" to the interest. The California regulation, the Court held, was not narrowly tailored because California could obtain Schedule B information from individual organizations on case-by-case basis when needed for specific investigations rather than requiring blanket pre-investigation submission. 3. **Facial invalidity.** The Court held the regulation facially invalid — not merely as applied to AFP Foundation and Thomas More — because the regulation imposed the same burden on all charitable organizations regardless of their political activities or controversies. [[Justice Sotomayor]] wrote the principal dissent (joined by Justices Breyer and Kagan), arguing that the majority's "narrow tailoring" framework was new and inconsistent with prior cases, and that the practical effect was to subject all disclosure regulations to a more skeptical standard than the *Buckley v. Valeo* framework had used. ## The Doctrinal Move The principal doctrinal move was the **strengthening of First Amendment review of disclosure regulations**. Prior cases (including [[Buckley v. Valeo]] 1976) had upheld disclosure regimes under intermediate scrutiny — requiring only that disclosure be "substantially related" to a governmental interest. *AFP v. Bonta* effectively imported a "narrow tailoring" requirement that is closer to the strict-scrutiny standard the Court applies to direct restrictions on speech. The shift signals that the Roberts Court is prepared to **constitutionalize donor anonymity** in a substantial way — not just for political spending (where post-2010 dark-money architecture already operates) but for charitable and nonprofit organizations broadly. The implication for campaign-finance law is significant: 1. **Disclosure regulations are constitutionally suspect.** The one major regulatory mechanism that survived the *Buckley* / *Citizens United* / *McCutcheon* dismantling — disclosure — is now under more aggressive First Amendment review. 2. **State-level disclosure expansion is constrained.** Several states had attempted to expand donor-disclosure regulations as a response to the federal post-*Citizens United* environment. *AFP v. Bonta* substantially constrains the available state-law tools. 3. **The associational-rights framing has broader implications.** The majority's framework — that disclosure burdens associational freedom — could be extended to challenge other disclosure regimes, including the federal campaign-finance disclosure system the [[Federal Election Commission]] administers. ## Significance for the KB *AFP v. Bonta* is the **2021 capstone** in the Roberts Court's contemporary campaign-finance and disclosure jurisprudence. The case matters for the KB on three registers: 1. **It is the first major case explicitly attacking the disclosure system.** Until 2021, the post-2010 dark-money architecture had operated by *evading* disclosure (through 501(c)(4) and similar vehicles that are not required to disclose donors) rather than by overturning the underlying disclosure rules. *AFP v. Bonta* is the first case to substantially constrain *the disclosure rules themselves*. 2. **The plaintiff alignment is structurally illustrative.** AFP Foundation is the [[Koch Network]]'s 501(c)(3) charitable affiliate — directly connected to the principal contemporary dark-money political-funding infrastructure. The case is one in which Koch-network organizations directly litigated, and won, an expansion of donor-anonymity protection. 3. **It demonstrates the post-Citizens-United trajectory.** Once the post-Watergate substantive restrictions on political spending were substantially dismantled (2010–2014), the next constitutional battleground became the disclosure regime that remained. *AFP v. Bonta* is the opening move on that battleground. ## See Also - [[Citizens United v. FEC]] — the 2010 case that dismantled the substantive corporate-spending restrictions; *AFP v. Bonta* extends the same logic to the disclosure side - [[Buckley v. Valeo]] — the 1976 case that upheld disclosure regimes under intermediate scrutiny (the standard *AFP v. Bonta* substantially strengthens) - [[McCutcheon v. FEC]] — the 2014 case that struck aggregate contribution limits - [[Dark Money]] — the architecture *AFP v. Bonta* further constitutionalizes - [[501(c)(4)]] — the principal donor-disclosure-evading vehicle that *AFP v. Bonta* protects - [[Koch Network]] — the plaintiff's parent organization - [[Federal Election Commission]] — the federal disclosure-administering agency - [[Campaign Finance Timeline]] — full chronological view - [[Campaign Finance]] — Foundations hub