By a 2-1 vote, the Seventh Circuit has upheld a campaign finance disclosure statute in Majors v. Abell. Before the Supreme Court decided McConnell v. FEC, there were a number of open questions regarding the constitutionality of campaign finance disclosure laws, including the question whether government compelled disclosure on the face of a document (or other communication) is constitutionally permissible (or whether the First amendment creates a right to engage in anonymous speech).
I believe that McConnell did nothing to clarify this question, or two other important disclosure questions. (See the abstract of my forthcoming Election Law Journal article on this topic here. The article is part of a symposium on McConnell that will be out any day—the table of contents for that publication is here.)
In Majors, all three judges agree that McConnell is unhelpful in answering the question. Judge Posner, writing for the majority, holds the Indiana statute constitutional: “Reluctant, without clearer guidance from the Court, to interfere with state experimentation in the baffling and conflicted field of campaign finance law without guidance from authoritative precedent, we hold that the Indiana statute is constitutional.” Judge Easterbrook, in dissent, notes many of the questions I raise in my article: “Still, the Justices