On March 12, the Kansas Senate Committee on Federal and State Affairs held a hearing on H.B. 2206, a bill that addresses significant impediments to donor privacy and nonprofit advocacy rights in the state’s current campaign finance statutes.

The legislation, which passed the House last month, includes noteworthy changes to key provisions in Kansas law that align with past recommendations from People United for Privacy (PUFP) and will positively impact every nonprofit that engages on issues of public importance in The Sunflower State. The reforms in H.B. 2206 also build upon the Legislature’s previous bipartisan achievement to cement nonprofit donor privacy protections into law in 2022.

In a 2023 letter to a Special Committee created to evaluate deficiencies in state campaign finance statutes, PUFP highlighted portions of the law most in need of reform to avoid violating nonprofit speech and privacy rights and suggested specific changes to statutory language. Among the suggestions was a revised definition of “political committee,” more commonly known as a PAC.  PUFP warned lawmakers that the current definition, which relies on whether an organization has “a major purpose” of engaging in electoral advocacy, runs afoul of First Amendment precedent limiting the scope of campaign finance disclosure requirements. As PUFP recommended in 2023, H.B. 2206 appropriately narrows the “political committee” definition to include only groups with “the major purpose” of making campaign contributions or expressly advocating for the election or defeat of candidates.

For many nonprofits active in Kansas, this seemingly insignificant change from ‘a’ to ‘the’ will have a substantial impact on the privacy of their supporters and on each organization’s ability to voice an opinion in ongoing political and policy debates.

Indeed, a local nonprofit successfully challenged state enforcement officials’ application of Kansas’ vague and overbroad PAC definition after facing demands to publicly expose its donors. After filing suit with the help of attorneys at the Institute for Free Speech in 2024, Fresh Vision OP won a permanent injunction against the state’s attempt to regulate the issue advocacy organization as a political committee. As the presiding U.S. District Court judge, an appointee of President Obama, explained in his ruling early this year, precedents established by U.S. Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit caselaw “require that a group have the major purpose—not simply a major purpose—of express advocacy before a state may designate the group as a political committee.” Kansas law fails that test, and lawmakers are wisely seizing on PUFP’s recommendations to remedy the issue.

In 2023, PUFP also urged Kansas lawmakers to clarify reporting requirements for nonprofits that occasionally make independent expenditures expressly advocating for the election or defeat of candidates. Implicit in the issues motivating H.B. 2206’s welcome revisions to Kansas’ “political committee” definition, groups that only incidentally engage in electoral advocacy while pursuing their missions should not be treated as political committees. Current law, while unclear, could be interpreted as requiring nonprofits making independent expenditures to comply with the same reporting requirements as PACs, including donor disclosure, regardless of whether the group meets the definition of a political committee.

Whether Kansas statute is within the bounds of First Amendment precedent should not be open to interpretation, and the privacy of nonprofit donors should not be left to the whims of potentially overzealous enforcement officials. Fortunately, the revised independent expenditure reporting requirements for nonprofits in H.B. 2206 incorporate many of our suggested revisions by clarifying the intent of the existing statute and setting forth reporting obligations that capture the spending at issue without unnecessarily – and potentially unconstitutionally – invading donor privacy rights for nonprofit speakers that only occasionally engage in political advocacy.

In a recent letter to the Senate Committee on Federal and State Affairs, People United for Privacy Foundation (PUFPF) encouraged Senators to support H.B. 2206 due to its important improvements to current law while also urging the Committee to include an additional reform via amendment.

Under current law, anyone who gives more than $50 to a political committee must be identified in public reports. This absurdly low disclosure threshold needlessly violates the personal privacy of small donors and is likely unconstitutional under Supreme Court precedent. The letter asks the Committee to amend H.B. 2206 to substantially increase this threshold from $50 to $500 and index the new threshold to inflation.

As PUFPF’s letter on H.B. 2206 explains, the bill “rectifies two significant shortcomings in Kansas law that threaten to impose undue burdens on the fundamental First Amendment rights of all Kansans to freely associate with the organizations and causes they believe in. While lawmakers should consider amending H.B. 2206 to rectify the state’s outdated and legally dubious donor reporting threshold, this legislation is a significant step forward in protecting Kansans’ First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and privacy in association. For these reasons, People United for Privacy Foundation urges the Committee to amend and recommend passage of H.B. 2206.”

The Kansas Legislature has previously passed vital protections for Kansans’ who choose to exercise their constitutional right to privately support nonprofit advocacy. The revisions to campaign finance law contained in H.B. 2206, along with the suggested amendment, would bolster those protections further and provide assurance that the state will not face future litigation necessary to uphold all Kansans’ First Amendment rights.