A conservative activist group says efforts by California’s attorney general to compel public disclosure of its donors would subject those donors to "grotesque threats" and chill their free speech rights.
In a lawsuit against attorney general Kamala Harris, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation objected to those disclosure requirements on First Amendment grounds, Bloomberg reported.
Americans for Prosperity Foundation, co-founded by billionaires Charles and David Koch, promotes limited government and free markets and conservative causes. Compelling disclosure of the nonprofit organization’s contributors may put them at risk of being targeted by the group’s opponents and intimidate would-be donors, the foundation is set to argue Tuesday in federal court in Los Angeles.
"Grotesque threats have been leveled against known associates of the foundation, ranging from threats to kill or maim, to threats to firebomb buildings," the organization said in its request to block California from seeking the information while it fights the state in court.
Harris is a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in California that will be left vacant when Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) retires next year.
Bloomberg went on to inaccurately tie the Kochs to campaign finance violations by two California groups during the 2012 election cycle.
In 2013 Harris helped secure a $1 million settlement with two Arizona-based political groups that California election regulators said had ties to the brothers. The agreement resolved claims the groups violated California campaign finance laws by concealing the origin of $15 million in donations to conservative causes in the 2012 election.
In fact, Ann Ravel, then the chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, initially accused the Kochs of being involved in the scheme but later retracted that claim due to the lack of evidence supporting it.