McCauley

The private “bounty hunter” provisions of California’s Political Reform Act of 1974 allow private individuals to sue organizations which raise money to advocate positions on ballot initiatives for reporting errors. The decision of the United States Supreme Court involving an Ohio case, McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n (1995) 514 U.S. 334 [ 115 S.Ct. 1511 , 131 L.Ed.2d 426 ] (striking down statute outlawing anonymous campaign literature), raises thorny problems involving the constitutionality of California’s reporting statute, at least as it applies to private organizations engaged in “issue advocacy” (as distinct from “express advocacy” on behalf of a “clearly identified candidate”). (See Virginia Soc. for Human Life Inc. v. Caldwell (4th Cir. 1998) 152 F.3d 268 , 275 [holding that certain Virginia reporting requirements were not unconstitutional because state’s highest court had confined those requirements to “groups that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate”].)

Fortunately, we can skirt the thorny constitutional problems in this case. Under the more prosaic law of civil procedure, the judgment against the organization founded by…