Minnesota Lawyer
Mike Dean, executive director of Common Cause Minnesota (Staff file photo: Peter Bartz-Gallagher)
A legal challenge to a new state law regulating campaign contributions will be argued in federal court tomorrow afternoon. The lawsuit challenges disclosure requirements that were enacted by the Legislature in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which opened the door to direct corporate spending to influence elections.
The case was filed by two conservative advocacy groups — Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life and the Taxpayers League of Minnesota — and one company, Coastal Travel Enterprises. The law firm behind the suit is Bopp Coleson & Bostrom, the same firm that argued the Citizens United case. The plaintiffs want to be able to give directly to campaigns without the bureaucratic requirement of setting up a political action committee through which to funnel contributions. (See Charley Shaw’s news story on the legal battle here.)
Government watchdog groups, most notably Common Cause Minnesota, argue that further opening up political campaigns to corporate influence would be ruinous to democracy. The hearing will take place at 1:30 p.m. in Judge Donovan Frank‘s courtroom at the federal courthouse in St. Paul.
