August 24, 2026
Agents of the State declared, “Expose your donors, or face penalties.”
Imagine that Congress is about to vote on the Read the Bills Act. So many members of Congress have voiced support that it has a realistic chance of passing.
Of course, you’d expect Downsize DC to send out a message. That email would urge subscribers to pick up the phone and call their representative to get it over the finish line.
NOTE: You might see this amicus brief message TWICE. We shared this message with both Agenda Setters by Downsize DC and Zero Aggression Project subscribers.
Agenda Setters is our sister organization. Here at the Zero Aggression Project (technically, Downsize DC Foundation), we have a strictly public-education mission.
So, imagine that we publish a research report. There’s nothing unusual about that. Can you imagine a report titled, The Hidden Cost of Not Reading the Bill: How Congressional Negligence Produces Bad Law and Unseen Harm?
Then, something shocking happens!
Because we published that particular report, Zero Aggression Project gets a nasty letter from a government agency. After years of providing public education, it says we violated the law by publishing that report. Now, we must register with this agency, report our expenditures, and disclose our list of donors to them.
We would naturally refuse this order to expose our donors. It’s a violation of the Constitution.
Still, such letters always come with a threat. If our ZAP team didn’t comply…
We could be punitively fined.
For the Alaska Policy Forum, this story isn’t a hypothetical. It’s reality.
Expose Your Donors, Or Else
The Alaska Policy Forum (APF) is a nonprofit that promotes limited government. In 2020, the state of Alaska had a ballot measure proposing ranked-choice voting.
The APF published two press releases, a video, and a blog post criticizing ranked-choice voting. All told, they spent $643 on those messages. And this next part is key…
They never mentioned the ballot measure by name, nor did they encourage people to vote one way or another.
In law, those two things are called bright-line tests.
But that didn’t matter to the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC). They arbitrarily decided that APF’s issue advocacy was actually ballot campaign activity. Why? Merely because APF published materials about ranked-choice voting while there was a ranked-choice voting measure on the ballot.
The APF was found to be in violation of campaign finance laws and ordered to disclose its donors.
The APF appealed the ruling. Despite the absence of evidence that the APF had violated a bright-line test, the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the APOC’s radical and arbitrary ruling.
That’s unconstitutional
Now, both of the Downsize DC “sister groups” want to file an amicus brief petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case… Alaska Policy Forum v. Alaska Public Offices Commission.
You may disagree with the APF’s stance on ranked-choice voting, but there is a higher principle at stake. Everyone must be free to publish their piece. That isn’t just our opinion; it’s a founding principle of this country, enshrined in our First Amendment right to Freedom of the Press.
In an age of doxxing – the malicious act of publicly revealing private information about a person online (address, phone number, etc.) to incite harassment or fear – it’s not difficult to imagine why donor anonymity is a vital right of human security.
Fortunately…
Donor anonymity is one of the qualities of the Free Press right. In law, it is a “prior restraint” to require people to obtain a sort of license – permission from the government – to publish or broadcast their message. Our amicus curiae brief will make that argument.
To be clear, this Alaska case wasn’t decided on prior restraint or anonymity grounds. That’s why we believe our brief – our Free Press argument – is a necessity in this case.
This case is also important because if courts can arbitrarily decide what qualifies as campaign activity, every nonprofit in the country is in danger of having to turn over their donor list when there is a ballot measure or vote.
Or groups like Downsize DC could be forced to just shut up.
This ruling requires nonprofits to make the impossible decision between advancing their mission and protecting their donors.
When will the core issues that a nonprofit’s members and followers care about come up for a vote? No nonprofit can predict such things.
But regulators shouldn’t be able to cow them into silence.
Next steps
We’re drafting a bold, principled amicus brief to carry these arguments to the Justices. To complete this mission, we need you.
Will you help us file this special brief?
To be successful, we need one, two, or three lead donors to get us to the first $2,000 – could that be you?
If you can give at any level, that matters too. The average contribution is $55, and it all adds up.
You can also start a monthly pledge.
Remember, your donation to Downsize DC Foundation, through the ZAP page, is tax-deductible.
Thank you in advance for your participation!
ZAP the State and have a nice day,
Jim Babka, Co-Creator
Zero Aggression Project
Postscript
The fact that you’re reading this P.S. guarantees you’ll know something few people understand. Free press is separate and distinct from free speech. When a body is writing a governing document, they carefully pore over and deliberate on every word. Inside the First Amendment, there are three textual cues that make the intentional distinction clear.
First, the two rights are listed separately. Second, each is preceded by the article “the.” Third, they are separated by the conjunction “or.” Combined with “Congress shall make no law,” the Free Press right means that Who helped publish something is none of the government’s business.
I watched our attorney, the late Herb Titus, make this argument (and others) when we took (Ron) Paul v. FEC to the U.S. Supreme Court. We’ve repeatedly argued in several amicus curiae briefs over the years for this inherent right to anonymity. I’ll list two examples. We did it in Doe v. Reed (2010). We did it last year in First Choice vs. Platkin. Our Alaska brief is needed, and we’re the right ones to deliver it. Please join us now.
Today’s Action: Contribute to fund an amicus brief in the case Alaska Policy Forum v. Alaska Public Offices Commission