This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, April 29th, 2021. I'm Caleb Brown. The state of California

has for years maintained that in order to raise funds for your non-profit in the state, you must send California a list of your

donors.

Notwithstanding the ugly history of states demanding lists of non-profit donors, the Supreme

Court recently heard a challenge to that requirement in the case of Americans for Prosperity Foundation, Vibata.

Paul Sherman of the Institute for Justice comments on the oral argument held this week.

Like all states, California regulates charities that solicit contributions within the state.

But like virtually no states, California forces charities to turn over a list of their large contributors to the state.

It did not always do this.

Basically, the way it works is if you're a charity you have to submit a

form to the IRS called Form 990 and attached to that is a document called

Schedule B lists your largest contributors.

California used to only require charities to turn in their form

990 if they wanted to solicit contributions in the state. But starting in 2010 under then

Attorney General Kamala Harris, the state started sending deficiency letters to charities that did not have schedule Bs.

Well, what does that mean for a non-profit that would like to raise funds in California?

And of course, non-profits raise funds in all states to the extent that they're sending

emails to people who live in that state. Yeah so I mean what it fundamentally

means is it's a massive intrusion into the privacy of private associations.

You know, one of the things that has happened with this case is a lot of people are viewing

it through the lens of campaign finance disclosure because

AFP itself is a fairly political organization but it's important to recognize

...