Oxnard, CA — The City of Oxnard in California crafted a campaign finance law to silence its most vocal critic, blatantly violating the First Amendment’s protection against government viewpoint discrimination.  

That’s why the Institute for Free Speech filed an amicus brief in Moving Oxnard Forward, Inc. v. Lourdes Lopez before the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The brief argues that “the city’s deliberate attempt to silence a challenger by eliminating the financing that only he used is an attack on the democratic process, and the First Amendment requires an ‘independent and careful’ review under closely drawn scrutiny.” 

The City of Oxnard targeted Aaron Starr and his nonprofit organization Moving Oxnard Forward through Measure B, a ballot measure that included caps on individual contributions to political campaigns. Starr has been a vocal critic of members of the Oxnard City Council, and Measure B’s restrictions would disproportionately affect Starr’s primary form of fundraising. 

“Knowing that Starr, and no one else, relied on particular contributions, the city leaders engineered a law that would undermine his and no one else’s financing, and thus his ability to communicate with voters,” the Institute’s brief explains.   

Over the years, the Supreme Court has determined that contribution limits must be aimed at “quid pro quo corruption or its appearance.” However, as a previous opinion in the case notes, “Measure B’s campaign finance limits were much more closely drawn to the prohibited objective of stopping Starr rather than remedying corruption concerns.” 

 In addition to challenging the constitutionality of Measure B, the brief also calls on the Ninth Circuit to overturn decisions in Montana Right to Life Ass’n v. Eddleman and Lair v. Motl., stating that the erroneous decisions “bless government abridgement of speech and association with the use of a standard that falls short even of intermediate scrutiny.” The evidence in the two cases failed to meet the constitutional definition of “corruption” articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court and allows the government to overstep with a broad sliding scale of justification for implementing contribution limits. 

To read the full Institute for Free Speech amicus brief, click here. 

About the Institute for Free Speech

The Institute for Free Speech promotes and defends the political speech rights to freely speak, assemble, publish, and petition the government guaranteed by the First Amendment.