Facts
- Minnesota authorized school boards to place school-funding measures on the ballot.
- Two grassroots advocacy organizations and their leaders opposed such ballot initiatives and sought to campaign against them.
- A Minnesota statute made it a gross misdemeanor to intentionally help prepare or distribute paid political advertising or campaign material about a ballot question that is false, when the speaker knows it is false or acts with reckless disregard for truth.
- The enforcement scheme permitted private complainants (excluding news media) to file complaints with an administrative agency, triggering preliminary review, probable-cause screening, hearings, and potential referral to county prosecutors for criminal proceedings.
- Plaintiffs alleged the law and its complaint-driven administrative process chilled their intended political advocacy on ballot questions.
Issues
- Whether plaintiffs had Article III standing based on an objectively reasonable chill and a credible threat of enforcement.
- What level of First Amendment scrutiny applies to a criminal prohibition on false statements in paid political campaign materials concerning ballot questions.
- Whether the statute is narrowly tailored and the least restrictive means of serving asserted interests in fair elections and preventing fraud on the electorate.
- Whether the Minnesota Attorney General could be sued in her official capacity or was shielded by Eleventh Amendment immunity.
Decision
- The court held plaintiffs had standing because the statute and its enforcement process created a credible threat sufficient to chill planned speech.
- The court applied strict scrutiny because the regulated speech was core political speech about ballot questions.
- The court held the statute unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it was not narrowly tailored, was both overbroad and underinclusive, and was not the least restrictive means of achieving the state’s asserted interests.
- The court dismissed the official-capacity claims against the Minnesota Attorney General on Eleventh Amendment immunity grounds.
- The court dismissed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings.
Legal Principles
- A pre-enforcement First Amendment challenge has standing where the plaintiff plans to engage in arguably covered speech and faces a credible threat of enforcement that creates an objectively reasonable chill.
- Regulations of core political speech, including advocacy concerning ballot measures, are subject to strict scrutiny.
- Even assuming compelling state interests in election integrity and preventing fraud, a criminal ban on campaign falsehoods fails strict scrutiny if it is overbroad, underinclusive, or not the least restrictive means.
- Administrative complaint procedures that expose speakers to investigations and hearings can contribute to unconstitutional chilling effects when paired with broad criminal prohibitions.
- Eleventh Amendment immunity bars official-capacity claims against a state attorney general absent a sufficient enforcement connection to the challenged statute.
Conclusion
The Eighth Circuit held that Minnesota’s criminal restriction on false statements in paid ballot-question campaign materials could not survive strict scrutiny and violated the First Amendment, while also dismissing the state attorney general from the case on sovereign-immunity grounds and remanding for further proceedings.