Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta
The Supreme Court struck down California's requirement that charities disclose their major donors' identities to the state attorney general, ruling that it violated the First Amendment right of donors to associate privately.
The decision establishes that government donor-disclosure programs must be closely fitted to the specific law-enforcement need they serve — not simply justified by administrative convenience — and signals stronger constitutional protection for the privacy of charitable giving.
How it got here: Two federal district courts permanently blocked California from collecting donor information; the Ninth Circuit reversed and ordered judgment for California; the two charities asked the Supreme Court to step in and the Court agreed to hear both cases together.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Two charities — Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which advocates for free-market policies, and Thomas More Law Center, a public-interest law firm focused on religious freedom and family values — were required by California to file IRS Schedule B forms listing the names and addresses of their major donors every year as a condition of renewing their state charity registrations. Both groups refused, arguing that exposure of donor identities would deter contributions and put supporters at risk of harassment and retaliation. The state attorney general threatened suspension and fines for noncompliance.
The question before the Court
Can California force charitable organizations to hand over the names and addresses of their major donors to the state attorney general as a condition of soliciting donations in the state?
The Court's answer
Yes — California's blanket requirement that charities submit their major donors' names and addresses to the state attorney general as a condition of operating in the state violates the First Amendment right to free association. The Court ruled that forced-disclosure laws must be "narrowly tailored" to the specific government interest they serve — meaning they must fit the goal with reasonable precision — and California's blanket collection of donor data from more than 60,000 charities every year failed that test.
The record showed almost no instance in which pre-collected donor information actually launched or advanced a single fraud investigation. California's real interest was administrative convenience — having the data on hand in case it became useful — but the Court held that efficiency alone cannot justify such a sweeping intrusion on donors' associational privacy. Because this mismatch between means and ends exists in every application of the rule, the Court invalidated California's disclosure requirement entirely, not just as to the two charities that sued.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Nonprofits operating in California — and potentially in the two other states with similar upfront-collection rules — can no longer be required to hand over top donors' names and addresses merely to maintain their registration. Donors who fear harassment or retaliation because of their support for controversial causes have broader legal protection, and state attorneys general who want donor information must now pursue it case by case through targeted requests rather than blanket annual collection.
What changes now
The permanent injunctions blocking California from collecting Schedule B donor information from these two charities are reinstated. Because the Court invalidated the requirement on its face — not just as applied to these two organizations — California cannot enforce the upfront Schedule B collection requirement against any charity. California may still seek donor information during active investigations through targeted tools like subpoenas or audit letters. Other states with similar blanket upfront-collection requirements face the same constitutional vulnerability.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not decide whether strict scrutiny — a harder standard to satisfy than exacting scrutiny — applies to all compelled-disclosure laws; that question split the concurring justices. It also does not directly address donor-disclosure requirements in the campaign-finance and election context, which the Court has treated as involving distinct considerations.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence in part — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed the law is unconstitutional but would apply strict scrutiny — not exacting scrutiny — to all laws that compel disclosure of protected associations, arguing that the First Amendment's Assembly Clause protects a right to associate anonymously. He also expressed serious doubts about the Court's 'overbreadth' doctrine, questioning whether courts have constitutional authority to strike down a law in all its applications rather than simply ruling on the case before them. He joined the core analytical parts of the majority but not the section categorically adopting exacting scrutiny or the facial-invalidation section.
Concurrence in part — Justice Alito
Justice Alito agreed that California's approach fails both exacting and strict scrutiny — calling the question 'not even close' — but declined to decide once and for all which standard should govern all compelled-disclosure cases. He argued that the Court's earliest compelled-disclosure decisions predated modern strict scrutiny doctrine and should not be read as permanently foreclosing it. Because the outcome is the same under either test, he saw no need to settle the question in this case.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
“Today, the Court holds that reporting and disclosure requirements must be narrowly tailored even if a plaintiff demonstrates no burden at all.”The dissent's core objection to the majority's new rule eliminating the requirement that plaintiffs first show an actual First Amendment injury.
Justice Sotomayor argued that the majority departed from decades of precedent by holding that all disclosure requirements must be narrowly tailored even when plaintiffs show no actual burden — no evidence that donors face real risks of harassment or retaliation from confidential submission to a government office. Under the correct approach, the level of required fit between a law's means and ends should be proportional to the actual burden the law imposes. Because California's requirement is confidential and petitioners failed to show any realistic risk of harm from it, the requirement should be upheld. She also contended the Court's facial-invalidation holding lacked any record evidence that a substantial proportion of affected donors would be chilled.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The First Amendment protects not just speech but the right to associate with others, including keeping those associations private. The Court has long held that compelled disclosure of who belongs to or donates to an organization can 'chill' participation just as effectively as an outright ban, particularly when exposure brings a risk of retaliation — as illustrated by the foundational case NAACP v. Alabama (1958), where Alabama sought the NAACP's membership list to drive the organization out of the state.
- The legal test for forced-disclosure laws is 'exacting scrutiny' — a demanding standard requiring (a) a substantial connection between the disclosure requirement and an important government interest, and (b) narrow tailoring, meaning the law must fit the government's specific goal with reasonable precision, even if it need not be the single least-intrusive option. The majority clarified today that narrow tailoring is always part of exacting scrutiny, rejecting the argument that it only kicks in when a plaintiff proves a severe burden on associational rights.
- California argued that collecting donor data upfront from all registered charities helped it detect fraud and self-dealing. The Court accepted that preventing charitable fraud is a genuine and important government interest, but found a 'dramatic mismatch' between that interest and the disclosure regime. The trial record showed that there was 'not a single, concrete instance' in which pre-collected Schedule B information actually initiated or advanced an investigation.
- California offered two defenses for collecting broadly rather than case by case: that alternatives like subpoenas or audit letters are slower, and that targeted requests might tip off a dishonest charity before investigators can act. The Court rejected both, noting that California had not even seriously studied alternatives and that the state's witnesses could not substantiate the tipping-off concern. The Court concluded that California's real interest was administrative convenience — having data on hand 'just in case' — not fraud detection.
- Because the mismatch between means and ends was present in every application of the rule (Schedule Bs were never used to initiate investigations in any case; alternatives always existed), the Court applied First Amendment 'overbreadth' doctrine — which allows a law to be struck down entirely when a substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional relative to its plainly legitimate uses. That standard was easily met here, making the facial challenge appropriate without requiring each charity to sue separately.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson (357 U.S. 449)
Reaffirmed as the foundational case establishing that compelled disclosure of group membership violates the First Amendment when it chills association.
Reaffirms Shelton v. Tucker (364 U.S. 479)
Reaffirmed for the core proposition that a substantial government interest cannot justify disclosure laws that are not narrowly tailored to that interest.