Free speech is crucial to our democracy. And after explicitly backing candidates or initiatives, essential to free speech is financial privacy. It’s good to know, for example, who is giving money to a political candidate because politicians have direct control over our lives. But if nonprofit groups and foundations cannot keep donor lists secret, then the donors can be harassed into ending their gifts, silencing the groups’ work.

That’s why we cheer federal Judge Manuel Real’s decision last month to keep secret the donor lists of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. In order to solicit donations in the state, California Attorney General Kamala Harris demands that nonprofits reveal donor names, claiming that the so-called Schedule B forms are needed to look for violations of state law.

Real replied, “Over the course of trial, the Attorney General was hard pressed to find a single witness who could corroborate the necessity of Schedule B forms in conjunction with their office’s investigations.”

Harris said the forms would be kept private. But the judge found that the attorney general has failed to keep the lists confidential.

Harris has been investigating ExxonMobil on whether it “lied to the public and shareholders about the risks of climate change, and whether the company’s statements over the years constitute violations of securities laws,” as The New York Times reported. But the oil giant also has free speech rights and can express itself as it wishes.

Now that Harris, who is running for the U.S. Senate, has been chastened over Schedule B disclosure, we urge her to drop her probe of ExxonMobil. As Thomas Jefferson said, “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”


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