A Nevada law barring anonymous political fliers was rejected Friday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as an unconstitutional restriction on free speech.
The ruling by a 3-judge panel of the appeals court overturns a decision by U.S. District Judge David Hagen who held that disclosing the authorship of political materials protects the election process from fraud.
Judge Marsha Berzon, writing for the San Francisco-based circuit court panel, said the state law requiring the disclosure "reaches far more core political speech than is necessary to achieve the state's otherwise legitimate interests, and advances those interests poorly if at all."
The 41-page ruling had been sought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, following Hagen's February 2001 decision that anonymous distribution of ideas is at the core of First Amendment principles - but anonymity isn't an absolute right.
Nevada lawmakers in 1997 amended state law to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against a similar Ohio law, but Berzon said the result was a state law "broader in restricting speech than the Ohio statute."
In the Ohio case the U.S. Supreme Court held "that if anonymous speech is banned, some useful speech will go unsaid," Berzon wrote, adding that given the breadth of the Nevada law "this likely result is all the more serious."
"The result could be a worse-informed, not better-informed, electorate."
ACLU lawyer Allen Lichtenstein, who brought the appeal, called the decision "a major victory for free speech rights in Nevada. ... It underscored the importance of anonymous political speech to our system and in our history."
"The court understood the importance of free and unfettered political discourse. In that sense, it's a victory not just for the ACLCU but for the public."
The ACLU lawsuit drew attention after the 2000 Clark County Commission elections, when incumbent Lance Malone was caricatured in an anonymous flier sent to 39,000 voters in his district. He blamed the flier for his defeat.
The anti-Malone mailer blamed the commissioner for supporting a controversial neighborhood casino opposed by Station Casinos, and featured a cartoon showing Malone with dollar bills stuffed into his clothing over the caption, "You Just Can't Trust Lance Malone."
