Humboldt County’s Measure T Declared “Null and Void” – A Lesson in Basic Campaign Finance Law

So in the Prop 8 aftermath, there’s been a lot of anger directed at “out of state” money that flowed in to the Prop. 8 campaign.  We here at Johnny California received many a question about why people and organizations from out of state are allowed to seemingly dominate the ballot proposition process.

The answer lies in the basic rules of campaign finance law.  We found the perfect way to explain it to you in an easy-to-understand way — through the story of Humboldt County’s “Measure T.”

Ahhh… the sad tale of Humboldt County’s Measure T, which today was declared “null and void” in a settlement between the county and the two corporations who sued them (well, actually the lawsuit was brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation, an ultra-conservative think tank that likes to pick fights with hippies).

Two years ago the voters of Humboldt County approved a ballot measure that prohibited all corporations from outside of Humboldt County from contributing to Humboldt County political campaigns (for both candidates and ballot measures).  Yeah, we know that this is about out-of-county money and not out-of-state money, but the principles are the same.  And yeah, we also know that there’s different rules for religions, but those don’t apply in Prop. 8 anyway, as we explain here.

Here’s how it works:

The U.S. and every state Supreme Court in the country have long held that for legal purposes, corporations and organizations are “persons.”  That means that a corporation or a business or an organization has the same constitutional rights as human beings.  The language of Measure T specifically stated that:

Courts have illegitimately defined corporations as “persons,” allegedly vesting corporations with constitutional protections and rights. The unconstitutional doctrines of “corporate personhood” and “corporate constitutional rights” illegitimately deny the people of Humboldt County the ability to exercise our fundamental political rights.

Unfortunately for proponents of Measure T, this language is what’s known in the legal world as “a total loser.”  For starters, the notion of “corporations as ‘persons’” is an area of law that’s been around since the wooden-teeth days, the voters of Humboldt County were not about to undo over 200 years of precedent.

Second of all, the U.S. Supreme Court and state courts have long declared that giving money to political campaigns is a form of constitutionally protected free speech.  Prohibiting  a corporation/organization’s right to donate money to a political campaign is the same as prohibiting a person’s right of free speech.

Now if you’re thinking that all this talk of fundamental rights and equal protection sounds vaguely like the Prop. 8 lawsuit, you’re correct, sorta.  Sure, there’s an argument to be made that Measure T and Prop 8 cases are the same because both involve ballot measures which tried to overturn a group’s fundamental rights and deny them equal protection under the law.

There are a couple of differences though.  1)  Prop 8 amended the California constitution, Measure T was just a county law and 2) The Measure T lawsuit was brought in federal court and they sued solely on federal constitutional grounds, Prop 8 is in state court.

(If this last part made no sense to you, check out our Prop. 8 lawsuit explanation for non-lawyers).

So is there any hope of getting out-of-state money out of ballot prop. reform?  We’re not sure yet, we’re looking into that as well as looking into spending limits.   We shall report backon that soon.