McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission

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1995 United States Supreme Court case

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that an Ohio statute prohibiting anonymous campaign literature is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution , which protects the freedom of speech . In a 7–2 decision authored by Justice John Paul Stevens , the Court found that the First Amendment protects the decision of an author to remain anonymous.

On April 27, 1988, Margaret McIntyre stood outside of a middle school in Westerville, Ohio , and passed out anonymous leaflets that opposed a proposed school district tax levy . The Ohio Elections Commission fined McIntyre $100 for violating a state law that prohibited the distribution of any kind of political or campaign literature that does not have the name and address of the person responsible for its contents. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union , McIntyre appealed the fine in court. The county court reversed the fine, holding that because McIntyre did not attempt to mislead the public, the Ohio statute was unconstitutional as it applied to her actions. However, the state court of appeals reinstated the fine, referring to a 1922 decision by the Ohio Supreme Court as precedent, and the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed.

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Ohio Supreme Court on April 19, 1995. As precedent, the Court referred to its decision in _Talley v. California _ (1960), in which the Court found a similar law prohibiting anonymous leafletting unconstitutional, as well as the role of anonymous political literature throughout history, one example being _The Federalist Papers _. The Court's majority opinion emphasized the importance of anonymous speech, describing it as "not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent". The effect of the Court's opinion on anonymous speech has been analyzed in the contexts of television and radio advertisements, campaign finance, and the Internet.

Background

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Ohio statute and prior case law

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The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents the federal government from abridging the freedom of speech , and the Fourteenth Amendment extends this prohibition to state governments under the incorporation doctrine . Section 3599.09(A) of the Ohio Revised Code forbade the creation and distribution of any kind of publication "... designed to promote the adoption or defeat of any issue, or to influence the voters in any election ..." unless the publication contains the name and address of the person responsible for the content of the publication." Previously, in a case called State v. Babst (1922), the Supreme Court of Ohio , the state's highest court, upheld the constitutionality of the "statutory predecessor" of section 3599.09(A).

However, in _Talley v. California _ (1960), the Supreme Court of the United States held that a similar Los Angeles city ordinance prohibiting all anonymous leafletting was unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court has also discussed whether disclosure of an anonymous individual's identity is permissible in certain situations. In _Buckley v. Valeo _ (1976), the Court upheld, among other things, a part of the Federal Election Campaign Act that required the public disclosure of political campaign contributions above a certain dollar amount. Applying a standard of exacting scrutiny , the Court determined that the government's interest in providing the electorate with information about campaign contributions outweighed the First Amendment concerns in the case of Buckley. In _First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti _ (1978), the Court invalidated a Massachusetts law that made it a crime to use corporate funds to influence the voters of an election. As part of its analysis, the Court commented that "identification of the source of advertising may be required as a means of disclosure, so that the people will be able to evaluate the arguments to which they are being subjected".

Facts of the case

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One of the anonymous leaflets passed out by Margaret McIntyre which became the subject of McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission

On the evening of April 27, 1988, the superintendent of Westerville City School District held a public meeting at Blendon Middle School in Westerville, Ohio , to discuss a new school district tax levy . On the same day, an Ohioan named Margaret McIntyre stood outside the school and distributed leaflets to meeting attendants, asking them to vote no on the tax levy issue. Some of the leaflets did not identify her as the author, instead identifying the message as coming from "concerned parents and tax payers".

While she was distributing the leaflets, a school official who supported the tax proposal warned McIntyre that her anonymous leaflets were unlawful. Despite the warning, McIntyre continued to distribute the leaflets at a meeting the next day. The tax levy issue failed to pass on its first try. In November 1988, in the third election on which the issue was presented, the tax levy was finally approved. Five months after the levy passed, the same school official who warned McIntyre about her anonymous leaflets filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission, accusing McIntyre of violating section 3599.09(A) of the Ohio Revised Code. The commission found her guilty and fined her $100.

Lower court proceedings

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McIntyre appealed the fine to the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas , which reversed the fine, holding that because McIntyre "did not 'mislead the public nor act in a surreptitious manner'", section 3599.09(A) was unconstitutional as it applied to her actions. McIntyre was represented by David Goldberger, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union . The Ohio Court of Appeals reversed that court, putting back the fine. In a divided vote, the majority of the judges felt bound by the precedent set in State v. Babst (1922) by the Supreme Court of Ohio, which upheld the "statutory predecessor" of section 3599.09(A). The judge who dissented from the opinion argued that the U.S. Supreme Court's intervening decision in Talley v. California (1960) "compelled the Ohio court to adopt a narrowing construction of the statute to save its constitutionality". The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals, also by a divided vote. The majority of the state s

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