WyLiberty Attorneys File Brief Highlighting Government Secrecy

CHEYENNE – Wyoming Liberty Group attorneys filed a supplemental brief with the United States Supreme Court today in the case Free Speech v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), discussing recent events at the FEC and how they should impact the Court's review of Free Speech's case.

"Since this case began nearly two years ago, the FEC has insisted that our clients are complaining about simple campaign disclosure and that the laws governing disclosure are coherent, but that's simply not true," said Benjamin Barr, lead counsel to Free Speech. "In fact, the FEC often makes its rules up as it goes along, only to change interpretations months later. If the nation's expert in election law can't figure this out, how can our clients possibly do so?"

WyLiberty's supplemental brief discusses a decision at the FEC (by a 3-3 vote) to not pursue an investigation against CrossroadsGPS, a nationwide advocacy group that was accused of failing to register and report as a political committee with the agency. The three commissioners who voted against pursuing the investigation noted in a statement that they relied on a report from FEC attorneys that was withdrawn and replaced while the Crossroads case was pending. These commissioners attached a copy of the report to their statement, but all 75 pages of the report were redacted when their statement was made available.

"Like the FEC says, 'It's only disclosure,'" said Steve Klein, co-counsel to Free Speech. "The irony is certainly funny, but there's nothing funny about its implications in this case. The FEC's attorneys have argued before numerous courts that the agency's regulations can be understood by looking at enforcement matters like CrossroadsGPS. It wasn't a very good argument to begin with, but now it's galling since the agency is hiding some of the very documents on which they base this argument."

Free Speech filed its initial petition with the Supreme Court on December 30, after losing its appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The Solicitor General of the United States responded on April 4. If the Supreme Court accepts the case, it will likely be heard next fall.

"Since we filed Free Speech's case, government efforts to stifle political engagement have only gotten worse," said Barr. "Many agencies like the IRS are now implicated, and their actions are based on laws similar to those challenged in our case. We hope the Court accepts our petition and finally puts the rest of the government in its place by ruling that laws and regulations answer to the First Amendment, not the other way around."