Mark Brown oped in Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Democracy in Ohio suffered a setback when the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last month refused to block Ohio’s House Bill 1 ban on “foreign nationals” “[m]ak[ing] a contribution … or independent expenditure in support of or opposition to a statewide ballot issue.” Unlike its federal counterpart, Ohio’s ban extends to “issue advocacy” (ballot measures) and criminalizes speech by lawful permanent residents (green card holders) living in Ohio. Further deviating from the longstanding federal prohibition – which allows criminal penalties only when violations are “willful” — Ohio’s new prohibitions criminalize innocent mistakes.

As then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh explained a dozen years ago, Congress chose not to apply the speech restrictions placed on foreign nationals to green card holders because the latter “stand in a different relationship to the American political community …., [and] have a long-term stake in the flourishing of American society.” Kavanaugh also noted that punishing “issue advocacy — that is, speech that does not expressly advocate the election or defeat of a specific candidate” (which federal law does not do) — could cross the constitutional “line drawn by the Supreme Court in [FEC v.] Wisconsin Right to Life,” a precursor to its better-known holding in Citizens United v. FEC (extending First Amendment protections from nonprofits to for-profit corporations).

House Bill 1 ignores all of this by both prohibiting green card holders’ speech about ballot issues and then criminalizing domestic nonprofits’ speech about ballot issues when they “us[e] any funds [they] know were received from a foreign national,” including green card holders. Under HB 1’s reach, an editorial printed by a church in a parish bulletin opposing an abortion amendment could be criminal if a green-card parishioner dropped a $1 bill in the Sunday collection plate. The same goes for Ohio’s Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which accepts dues from green card holders and often voices opinions on citizen initiatives.

House Bill 1 threatens just about every charity and membership organization that uses the marketplace of ideas in Ohio with a criminal investigation. Of course, those that fall into the Attorney General’s and Secretary of State’s good graces will have nothing to fear. The rest, however, will effectively be forced either to take complex, expensive and tedious measures to segregate money that is received from lawful permanent residents or simply not speak….