Justice v. Hosemann
Protecting Citizen Speech

In America, the only thing you should need to speak is an opinion. But thanks to Mississippi’s burdensome campaign finance laws, groups of concerned citizens need more than just their opinions: They also need a lawyer.

Vance Justice, Sharon Bynum, Matt Johnson, Alison Kinnaman and Stan O’Dell are Mississippi citizens that simply want to join together and speak out in favor of Initiative 31—an effort that would provide Mississippi citizens with greater protection from eminent domain abuse. But if they spend just $200 on signs, buttons and flyers without first registering with the government and navigating a complex web of regulations, they would be subject to fines and possible criminal penalties.

In conjunction with this lawsuit, the Institute for Justice released a national report, Full Disclosure: How Campaign Finance Disclosure Laws Fail to Inform Voters and Stifle Public Debate. The report shows that disclosure laws do little to help voters while imposing substantial costs on those wishing to participate in the political process.

This lawsuit was filed on Thursday, October 20, 2011, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. It continues the Institute for Justice’s Citizen Speech Initiative, a national effort to restore full protection to free political speech.