LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.
Appellant National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") appeals the denial of a preliminary injunction in its challenge to the constitutionality of a Rhode Island election law requiring the reporting of so-called "independent expenditures." NOM argues that Rhode Island's reporting requirement is both overbroad under the First Amendment and so vague in its terms as to violate due process. The district court, noting the minimal burden imposed by the law and the valuable governmental interest underlying it, concluded that NOM had failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits of its challenge. After careful review, we find no abuse of discretion in the district court's denial of preliminary relief. We therefore affirm.
Our opinion in this appeal accompanies an opinion resolving a separate set of challenges to provisions of Maine's election laws, including an independent expenditure reporting requirement similar to Rhode Island's. See Nat'l Org. for Marriage v. McKee, 649 F.3d 34 (1st Cir.2011). The vagueness and overbreadth arguments NOM presses here are substantially the same as those addressed in our companion opinion. We therefore rely heavily here on our more thorough discussion in the Maine opinion.
In September 2010, NOM filed a verified complaint in the District Court for the District of Rhode Island challenging the constitutionality of several aspects of Rhode Island's Campaign Contributions and Expenditures Reporting Act, R.I. Gen. Laws § 17-25-1 et seq., on vagueness and First Amendment overbreadth grounds.
NOM's motion for a preliminary injunction came before the district court for a hearing on October 21, 2010. At the hearing, in light of prior assurances from the defendants that NOM could engage in its intended speech without registering as a PAC,
On interlocutory appeal from the district court's denial of its motion for preliminary relief, NOM argues that the court erred as a matter of law in concluding that NOM had not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of its challenge to Rhode Island's independent expenditure statute. We review the denial of a preliminary injunction under a deferential standard, reversing only upon finding a mistake of law, a clear error in fact-finding, or other abuse of discretion, González-Droz v. González-Colon, 573 F.3d 75, 79 (1st Cir.2009). In ruling on a motion for preliminary relief, a district court must consider several factors, among which likelihood of success carries particular weight.
Campaign finance disclosure laws challenged on First Amendment grounds are subject to "exacting scrutiny," "which requires a `substantial relation' between the disclosure requirement and a `sufficiently important' governmental interest." Citizens United v. FEC, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 876, 914, 175 L.Ed.2d 753 (2010) (quoting Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 64, 66, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976)). As the district court correctly concluded, Rhode Island's independent expenditure law requires only disclosure, and, as a disclosure law, is adequately supported by a governmental interest in providing information to the electorate.
In pertinent part, Rhode Island's independent expenditure provision provides that any person "not acting in concert with any other person or group" who makes expenditures aggregating over $100 in a given calendar year "to support or defeat a candidate" must file a report within seven days with (1) the Rhode Island Board of Elections (the "Board") and (2) the treasurer of the candidate "on whose behalf the expenditure ... was made." R.I. Gen. Laws § 17-25-10(b). The report, which is filed on a one-page form provided by the Board, simply requires disclosure of the name and contact information of the person making the expenditure, identification of the candidate or candidates the expenditures were made to support or defeat, and the date, amount, recipient, and purpose of each expenditure. The individual submitting the report must also certify that the expenditures were not made in concert with any other person or group.
These disclosure requirements are substantially the same as those imposed by Maine's independent expenditure provision, which we uphold today in our companion opinion. As with Maine's law, the disclosures required by the provision here impose no great burden on the exercise of election-related speech. All that is required is the completion of a one-page form, which can be filled out and submitted to the Board online. This relatively small imposition serves the recognizedly important government interest in "provid[ing] the electorate with information as to where political campaign money comes from and how it is spent." Buckley, 424 U.S. at 66, 96 S.Ct. 612 (internal quotation marks omitted).
NOM nonetheless argues that the district court erred on several grounds in finding insufficient likelihood of success on the merits to warrant preliminary relief. First, NOM contends that Rhode Island's independent expenditure law is unconstitutionally overbroad because it extends beyond regulation of express advocacy. As we explain in our companion opinion, the Supreme Court has explicitly rejected the contention that disclosure laws must be limited to regulation of express advocacy, Citizens United, 130 S.Ct. at 915, and thus this argument finds no support.
Second, NOM argues that Rhode Island lacks a sufficiently important interest to
Third, NOM challenges the requirement that independent expenditure reports be provided to the candidate "on whose behalf" the expenditure is made,
In sum, NOM identifies no error of law or clear error of fact-finding in the district court's holding that NOM did not satisfy its burden of showing a likelihood of success on the First Amendment challenge.
In denying preliminary relief, the district court did not expressly address NOM's arguments that portions of Rhode Island's independent expenditure provision are unconstitutionally vague. Regardless, as we briefly explain, NOM's vagueness contentions are without merit.
NOM argues that two specific instances of language in the independent expenditure provision raise vagueness problems: the word "support," in the phrase "to support or defeat a candidate," and the phrase "on whose behalf." R.I. Gen. Laws § 17-25-10(b). As we explain in our companion opinion, "a statute is unconstitutionally vague only if it `prohibits... an act in terms so uncertain that persons of average intelligence would have no choice but to guess at its meaning and modes of application.'" United States v. Councilman, 418 F.3d 67, 84 (1st Cir.2005) (en banc) (quoting United States v. Hussein, 351 F.3d 9, 14 (1st Cir.2003)). Measured against this standard, neither phrase challenged by NOM offends due process.
Rhode Island's independent expenditure statute requires the reporting of expenditures aggregating over $100, made independently of a candidate, "to support or defeat a candidate." R.I. Gen. Laws § 17-25-10(b). In this context, the word "support" "clearly set[s] forth the confines within which potential ... speakers must act in order to avoid triggering the provision." McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93, 170 n. 64, 124 S.Ct. 619, 157 L.Ed.2d 491 (2003), overruled on other grounds by Citizens United, 130 S.Ct. 876. Both we (in our companion opinion) and the Supreme Court have held, in very similar statutory settings, that the word "support" is sufficiently clear. See id. Particularly when paired with the word "defeat," "support" "'provide[s] explicit standards for those who apply them' and `give[s] the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited.'" Id. (quoting Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-09, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972)).
Nor do we find "on whose behalf" lacking clarity. The provision requires that reports of independent expenditures be submitted to the Board and "to the
Because NOM's vagueness arguments are without merit, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying preliminary relief without explicitly reaching the question of vagueness.
For the reasons set forth above, we affirm the district court's order denying NOM's motion for a preliminary injunction.
So ordered.