The U.S. District Court has pinned back the ears of the Utah political class, particularly Lieutenant Governor Herbert — slapping down key provisions of their unconstitutional campaign finance regulations. The law was exploited by political opponents to muzzle — even criminalize — certain speech.

When teachers in Utah began complaining to National Right to Work Foundation attorneys in early 2007 that union activists were swarming school property and pressuring them to sign petitions to overturn a school reform measure, the Foundation took quick action by running television and radio ads offering free legal aid.

That did not sit well with union activists who complained to the state’s speech regulators. The Lieutenant Governor and staff sent threatening letters to the Foundation demanding contributor information and other private information.

In response, the Foundation — with the invaluable help of the Madison Center for Free Speech — filed a lawsuit to challenge parts of Utah’s speech regulation laws as unconstitutional violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

In a summary judgment ruling issued late yesterday, Federal Judge Dee Benson agreed with the National Right to Work Foundation. Responding to the ruling, Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason issued the following statement:

Utah’s political authorities, especially Lieutenant Governor Herbert, went way overboard, and their unconstitutional law was deservedly smacked down by the U.S. District Court.

Our organization received numerous reports from employees about coercion and other illegal actions during a union petition drive in 2007. What we do is provide free legal aid and information. That’s all we do — it’s the Foundation’s mission, whether the union militants engaged in the coercion like it or not.

Just because a teacher union activist doesn’t like our public service legal-aid advertisements and files a complaint does not justify the state’s politicians coming in and harassing us with unconstitutional regulation.

The Utah law at issue is one of the most unconstitutionally overbroad and overvague of all campaign finance laws in the nation. The Judge recognized this and, not surprisingly, ruled in our favor.

Politicians can’t just come in and harass charities with draconian regulations that chill their voluntary, non-express-advocacy speech.

In a press release about the case James Bopp of the James Madison Center for Free Speech said:

This case was a perfect example of government overreaching into the very heart of the First Amendment… the Foundation was engaging in the very activities it always has, offering free legal aid to workers affected by coercive union activities, and because they happened to coincide with a ballot measure election, the state claimed that they were regulable.

This is a decisive victory for the First Amendment. Speech surrounding ballot measures is no less protected than speech about candidates, and regulation of political speech must be limited to express advocacy and organizations cannot be forced to register and report as a political committee unless they have the passage or defeat of a ballot measure as their major purpose.

The James Madison Center release can be downloaded here.