A divided federal appeals court has upheld Arizona's Voters' Right to Know Act, rejecting arguments from a fiscal conservative advocacy group backed by Charles Koch that the state's donor-disclosure requirements violate the First Amendment. The 2-1 ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court's earlier dismissal of the challenge brought by Americans for Prosperity.
The law, also known as Proposition 211, requires groups spending tens of thousands of dollars to influence Arizona elections to disclose their top donors, including the original sources of large donations and any intermediaries who pass money along to the spender. As reported by the Sacramento Bee, the appeals court described Americans for Prosperity's claims as conclusory and devoid of specifics. Arizona voters approved the measure by 72% in November 2022, according to Campaign Legal Center.
A Split Panel and a Pointed Dissent
Judges Johnnie Rawlinson, appointed by Bill Clinton in 2000, and Gabriel Sanchez, appointed by Joe Biden in 2021, upheld the decision. Judge Patrick Bumatay, appointed by Donald Trump in 2019, dissented, writing that anonymous political speech played a key role in the nation's founding, per the Sacramento Bee's report.
Americans for Prosperity had argued that the disclosure requirements chilled free speech and violated associational rights under the First Amendment. The group filed its federal lawsuit in 2023, and Campaign Legal Center notes the case followed years of litigation, moving from a district court dismissal through the appeal, filed May 8, 2024, which carries the 9th Circuit docket number 24-2933, according to CourtListener.
What the Law Actually Requires
The Act requires major campaign media spenders to disclose the original sources of large donations they receive, the same campaign legal group notes, including information about intermediaries between those original donors and the spender. Americans for Prosperity and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation had alleged those provisions chill protected speech and improperly compel association, a claim the district court rejected before the 9th Circuit weighed in.
The case was argued before Judges Rawlinson, Bumatay and Sanchez on May 15, 2025, according to the Institute for Free Speech, which characterized Proposition 211 as imposing sweeping disclosure rules unlike anything seen before. In its opening brief, Americans for Prosperity argued the disclosures were untethered to electoral activity and warned that naming donors could subject them to threats, harassment or reprisals.
Arizona's Top Court Already Weighed In
The 9th Circuit's ruling follows a related decision from the Arizona Supreme Court, which upheld the Voters' Right to Know Act in June, according to the Sacramento Bee. That state court did allow a separate claim, brought by the Goldwater Institute and the Free Enterprise Club in a statewide lawsuit making similar arguments, that the law violated the groups' own free speech rights to continue at the trial court level.
Echoes of a 2021 Supreme Court Fight
The ruling lands against the backdrop of a related fight over donor privacy that reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021. In Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, decided July 1, 2021, the justices found that California's blanket demand that all charities disclose major donors to the state attorney general was facially unconstitutional, according to Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute. The Court held that exacting scrutiny requires disclosure regimes to be narrowly tailored to the government's interest, and it reversed the 9th Circuit's prior judgment upholding California's rules, in part because the state did not actually rely on those donor disclosures to open fraud investigations.
Whether Arizona's law will face similar Supreme Court scrutiny remains to be seen. Americans for Prosperity did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the Sacramento Bee reports, and it is unclear whether the group plans to appeal. Any further appeal could put the matter before the full panel of 9th Circuit judges or the U.S. Supreme Court.
