This article will cover a short but tumultuous period in the history of campaign finance disclosure law from 2007 to 2010 to highlight the dramatic 180 degree turn that the law has taken on the issue of the constitutionality of disclosure within the past four years. First, I will explore the hostility that many lower courts were exhibiting in the short window between the Supreme Court’s decision in Wisconsin Right to Life II (WRTL II) in 2007 and the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC in 2010. Basically these lower courts made the mistake of applying WRTL II to disclosure laws. This mistake was corrected by the Supreme Court in Citizens United and Doe v. Reed in 2010. After Citizens United and Doe, lower courts all over the country have adopted the Supreme Court’s view that disclosure and disclaimers can be constitutionally applied to advertisements that feature candidates for office directly before an election. And lower courts have gone further to endorse disclosure around ballot measure fights as well. In other words, in the nation’s courts the tide has turned in favor of disclosure of the sources of money in politics.

If the past is prologue, we should anticipate a marked increase in the use of non-profits to mask for-profit money in politics. History shows that for-profit corporations spend through non-profits to enjoy their anonymity while spending without accountability from shareholders or customers. And Citizens United may only expand this corporate habit of spending through intermediaries. If for-profit corporations are purposefully using non-profits to hide the true source of their funds, then it is possible that the degree of disclosure required of non-profits in the future may have an impact on whether for-profits give money to ideological and politically active non-profits.

Citizens United changed many aspects of American campaign finance law. The Supreme Court’s decision ended decades-old restrictions on the use of union and corporate treasury funds to pay for independent expenditures and electioneering communications. But the one area where the Citizens United Court increased the ability of Congress to regulate was the disclosure of the sources of money in politics. Indeed, the Supreme Court found that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002’s (BCRA’s) disclaimer and disclosure provisions could be constitutionally applied to the plaintiff in Citizens United, a 501(c)(4) organization, as well as to its ads and its film entitled “Hillary: The Movie.”

As Citizens United reaffirms, in order for voters to make informed choices at the ballot box, they must know who is paying for each side of a political fight. Campaign finance disclosure and disclaimer laws should be adopted at the federal level to achieve this end, regardless of the tax status of the spender. Yet the question remains, how expansive is this governmental right to mandate disclosure? And in particular, what types of disclosure can non-profit social welfare organizations or trade associations be subject to in the future once they purchase political advertisements? These are the questions that this article will endeavor to answer.