At a moment when the leftmost fringe of the country wields massively disproportionate cultural power—the kind that can get presidents and children’s books wiped from the internet at the snap of a finger—it’s an especially cruel irony that they continue to make vintage 2009 arguments about the supposed omnipotence of conservative “dark money.”
In their latest effort to silence dissenting voices, “dark money” conspiracy theorists on the Left are on a mission to remove nonprofit donor privacy protections, threatening the First Amendment rights of Americans to freely associate with advocacy groups. Rhode Island Senator –and real-life Charlie Day meme– Sheldon Whitehouse leads this unconstitutional crusade on Capitol Hill. He recently took to Twitter to insult the intelligence of his followers with a video that warps the facts surrounding an upcoming Supreme Court case on this issue.
In Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Becerra, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to a California law requiring any charity that raises money in the state to disclose its donors to the state attorney general. The appellants in the case contend that the law deters individuals from donating or becoming members of certain groups for fear of political reprisal, chilling First Amendment activities.
Of course, this is not how Whitehouse sees the case. Because of his zealous commitment to exposing so-called corruption based on the thinnest of evidence, he also claims the Court took the case due to its ties to obscure and nefarious interest groups. To Whitehouse, the only obvious reason someone would dare to question the merits of this law must be that they are on the take from corporate interests.
A recent video he posted on Twitter alleges that the Supreme Court “quietly” took the case back in January and that the court “waited for months after Justice [Amy Comey] Barrett’s confirmation” to hear the case.
What Whitehouse omits is that the Court announced that it was taking up the case in the exact same fashion that they always do and have done for decades. For instance, within days of the announcement, multiple major news outlets covered that the Court was taking the case, including Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, USA Today, and National Review. That sort of lazy and obvious falsehood actually betrays Whitehouse's dim opinion of his own audience.
Notice too in his peculiar strain of leftist rhetoric, it’s always Sheldon contra mundum. Is there something Sheldon Whitehouse wishes to know but doesn’t? It’s hidden! Is there something he hoped got more publicity? It was released quietly! Is someone unwilling to answer one of his public denouncements? They’re shadowy!
That’s the kind of acute narcissism that obviates the need for any critical thinking or even engagement with alternative views. Who needs persuasion when you can rely on brickbat logic like the claim Whitehouse trumpeted on social media this week, “when organizations don’t want to disclose their funders, that’s a sign they should definitely disclose their funders.”
To further support his theory that “dark money” has influenced the court to hear this case, Whitehouse’s video includes a laundry list of right-of-center groups that “have urged the court to take the case.” But Whitehouse omits the crucial fact that the ACLU filed an amicus brief in conjunction with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Human Rights Campaign, and PEN America arguing the Court should rule in favor of donor privacy.
But even when his own liberal allies side with privacy rights, Whitehouse resorts to the same crude cudgel. To him, the ACLU et al. aren’t simply mistaken. According to Whitehouse, they are “creepy billionaires…running multi-million covert ops against their own country.” Wait, seriously? Yes, he explained, “dark money is pernicious on either side of the aisle.”
Whitehouse’s own followers were understandably baffled. “So you’d be ok with turning over donor lists for Planned Parenthood and BLM,” one asked. Would “forcing non-profits to turn over donor lists bring us closer to the requirement to name names during the days of the Red Scare,” asked another. Whitehouse had no response. Why bother to answer good faith questions from your own admirers when instead you can forever slay dragons in your own imagination?
In terms of the timing, many cases can take several months to over a year from when a petitioner asks the Court to hear a case to when the Court grants that petition. SCOTUSblog provides detailed case timelines, and one need not search for long to find an example of a case that wasn’t granted cert for over a year after the application was filed.
That’s because there are many legal filings, amicus briefs, replies from the various parties, and other considerations that go into how the Court decides to add a case to its docket. Even it was true that the court waited until after Justice Barrett’s confirmation, we can only speculate as to their reasoning. It’s possible that the Court felt that such a crucial issue involving First Amendment privacy concerns should not be decided by an 8-justice panel. Regardless, the idea that the court’s delay was influenced by politics or so-called “dark money” is patently ridiculous.
Appellants and amicus filers from both sides understand that donor anonymity is crucial to a thriving civil society where advocacy groups on the left and right drive the public discourse toward public policy initiatives and social change. These groups cannot engage in these conversations without the donations of individuals, including those who wish to stay anonymous for whatever reason. If nonprofit donors, members or supporters believe that their association could be made public, we will see a major decline in giving to advocacy organizations. Meanwhile, the loudest voices in our democracy will be politicians like Whitehouse, not the people.
Christian Josi is the Founder and Managing Director of C. JOSI & COMPANY, a communications and public affairs resource consultancy.