Cincinnati, Ohio, September 17 – American Promise issued the following statement in response the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decision allowing Ohio’s foreign money law to remain in effect:

“We commend the Sixth Circuit for allowing Ohio’s law prohibiting spending by foreign nationals in ballot issue campaigns to remain in effect. States must be able to choose how to protect the integrity of their elections from the influence of foreign money. Although a majority of the panel reached this result, the dissent would have struck the law down. 

“While we commend the Sixth Circuit today, we must also ask: Why should the fate of commonsense policy on spending in elections be in the hands of unelected judges? 

“Ohio lawmakers passed the law in 2024, following a 2023 election cycle in which millions of dollars poured into the state’s ballot issue campaigns from foreign nationals. The measure was then immediately challenged in federal court as a violation of the First Amendment. This strategy — turning to the courts to overturn campaign finance legislation — highlights the current dysfunction of our system: Unelected judges, rather than the American people, are deciding campaign finance policy. 

“It hasn’t always been this way. For the first 200 years of American history, policy regarding money in elections was the responsibility of legislators and policymakers in the states and Congress. But that changed beginning with a 1976 case — Buckley v. Valeo — where the Supreme Court first held that campaign finance regulations would be construed by judges as limits on free speech. 

“Applying Buckley over the past five decades, courts have repeatedly held that most commonsense campaign finance legislation — most recently, Maine’s law restricting foreign government spending in its ballot campaigns  — is unconstitutional.  

“The courts are wrong. The idea that the First Amendment prevents Congress and the states from regulating money in elections is not supported in the Constitution’s text or the original Founding-era understanding of free speech. 

“Ohio’s law got lucky today, but such legislation is often overturned, while lawmakers grow increasingly discouraged in their efforts to protect their elections. The good news is that the American people and lawmakers are pushing back against judicial overreach by supporting a constitutional amendment to address this issue. An amendment to the United States Constitution, like the For Our Freedom Amendment, would restore the ability of states and Congress to decide whether and how to address the influence of money in politics. To date, 23 states have called on Congress to propose such an amendment, with Utah as the most recent addition in March 2025.”