Campaign Legal Center Brief Urges Texas Supreme Court to Affirm Decision Upholding Texas Campaign Finance Laws
Today, the Campaign Legal Center filed an amicus brief urging the Texas Supreme Court to uphold a lower court decision affirming numerous provisions of Texas campaign finance laws in Texas Democratic Party v. King Street Patriots. The Campaign Legal Center filed amicus briefs in both the district court and the Court of Appeals defending the constitutionality of Texas’s law.
“The King Street Patriots are attempting to misapply recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to unrelated provisions of Texas campaign finance law and we trust the Texas Supreme Court will recognize this absurdity and reject this challenge, as did the lower courts,” said Tara Malloy, Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel. “The decisions in Citizens United and McCutcheon, cases that the King Street Patriots claim support their challenge, in fact have nothing to do with the laws that this group is challenging. This lawsuit is just one of a long list of cases nationwide attempting to overturn state and local campaign finance laws in the wake of Citizens United.”
This case began when the Texas Democratic Party filed an action against the King Street Patriots, alleging that the non-profit 501(c)(4) corporation made in-kind contributions to the state Republican Party in violation of Texas’s restriction on corporate political contributions, and failed to register as a “political committee” and comply with state disclosure laws. The King Street Patriots, in response, filed a broad counterclaim challenging the constitutionality of numerous provisions of Texas campaign finance law.
The lower court dismissed the counterclaim in its entirety, and the Texas Court of Appeals affirmed. The original Texas Democratic Party action seeking damages and declaratory and injunctive relief for the alleged campaign finance law violations has remained on a different track.
The Legal Center was aided in the filing of the amicus brief by Kelly G. Prather of the Greenwood Prather Law Firm in Houston.
To read the amicus brief filed today, click here.
To read the opinion of the Appeals Court, click here.