No. 24-3051 - In the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

14 v Case: 24-3051 Document: 33 Filed: 03/11/2024 Page: 7 INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE1 The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment rights of speech, assembly, petition, and press. [...] That is why the Supreme Court often looks to the experience of the states as one metric for deciding whether a campaign-finance restriction is rooted in a legitimate anticorruption interest. [...] But what to make of the fact that Ohio does not limit coordinated expenditures from parties in state elections? If the lack of evidence of quid pro corruption involving coordinated party expenditures is “taken as a triumph of the existing legal regime” in Ohio (and elsewhere), then that triumph undermines any claim that restricting party coordination is “necessary.” See Cruz, 142 S. [...] This fact “runs counter to the many prominent narratives about the deleterious effects of Citizens United,” id., and it undermines any claim that Congress might be justified in restricting coordinated party speech based on the perception that doing so might lower the appearance of corruption among the public. [...] Even a wink or nod by the donor would require reporting the donation as a contribution to the candidate, instead of the party.