Should financial contribution disclosure laws typical of candidate races apply to committees formed to help pass or defeat ballot initiatives?
Four lawyers, including local Democratic stalwart Andy Gordon, debated that issue on Oct. 16 at an event hosted by the Federalist Society.
Gordon, who is currently appealing a Maricopa County Superior Court $1.3 million judgment against a Phoenix ballot initiative committee, quickly drew the distinction between disclaimers — what must be posted on a committee’s advertisements — and financial disclosures that appear on committees’ campaign finance reports.
Gordon, who helped pass Arizona initiatives in 2006 that banned indoor smoking in most public places and raised the minimum wage, defended disclosure requirements as a useful and relatively easy tool that contributes to the public’s right to know.
Disclosure, he said, helped citizens distinguish a Prop. 201 campaign that proposed the smoking ban, from a more heavily financed ballot proposition that was advanced by tobacco companies.
 “Our position was ‘the tobacco companies are on the other side,’” he said, describing the campaign for the measure that voters passed in November. “Who supports or doesn’t support something is of great interest to the voters.”
While Gordon said his support for such disclosure laws was limited and not very liberal, several other participants attacked the regulations as unnecessary and an invasion of the privacy of contributors.
Steve Simpson, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, said the “marginal benefits” of ballot committee disclosure are outweighed by burdens of complying, and those laws do little to help citizens form intelligent opinions on proposed initiatives.
Instead, said Simpson, disclosure laws help spread or reinforce false notions that “special interests” dominate politics.
“Special interests have a role in the process,” he said. “But can they control the process to the point where they outweigh what the majority wants? Disclosure is a solution in search of a problem.”
Fellow Institute for Justice attorney Bill Maurer cautioned attendees at the Phoenician Resort that disclosure laws force contributors to publicly surrender their names, addresses and political allegiances.
Know Thy Neighbor, an effort that collects and publicizes the names of contributors to anti-gay marriage initiatives, is an example of the effects initiative disclosure can produce. The Web site opens up supporters of such measures to intimidation, he said.
“Regardless of what you think about gay marriage, this is a very disturbing issue,” said Maurer, who also added that such laws grant vested interests, government or private, with additional means to squash political efforts they oppose.
 In 2006 and this year, Maurer defended a state of Washington anti-tax ballot initiative committee charged by a firm employed by San Juan County with breaking campaign finance laws because it failed to report the voiced support of two radio personalities as an in-kind contribution to the campaign.
The charge was upheld by a trial court judge, but in April 2007, the state’s high court unanimously ruled in favor of the No New Gas Tax Committee, and remanded a portion of the case to the trial court level, which will decide to what extent the committee’s rights were violated, said Maurer.
“What ballot disclosure requirements did was provide a tool for one government or financial interest to beat up on their opposition with,” he said.
While agreeing that some disclosure laws — like those forcing committees to record and identify even low-level contributors — are too extensive, UCLA Law School Professor Daniel Lowenstein said he did not believe the laws have a “chilling effect” on citizen participation.
But Lowenstein, who in 1970 defended California disclosure laws from challenges led by oil companies opposing a measure to divert gas tax revenues to state transportation projects, said there is no legal basis to allow contributors to remain anonymous.
“They have been looking in the federal Constitution for the right to privacy for a very long time and it is my understanding they haven’t found it,” Lowenstein said.
The event was moderated by James Weinstein, a law professor of Arizona State University.