Yes, the ACLU has criticized HR 1. Here’s why

A major Democratic bill that aims to expand voting rights and overhaul campaign finance rules has resulted in some unusual allies.

"There’s a reason even the ACLU opposes #HR1 – it threatens our freedom of speech," tweeted Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel.

Known as the For the People Act, the 791-page H.R. 1 combines proposals for absentee voting, in-person voting, and campaign finance and ethics.

The ACLU supports the bill’s provisions to expand voting rights and while it has criticisms of the legislation, its senior counsel told PolitiFact that it has not formally opposed the 2021 version, saying "a serious legislative effort to restore and strengthen our republic is needed now more than ever."  But McDaniel is right in that the organization says certain campaign finance provisions would limit free speech — and the ACLU has formally opposed the bill in the past.

With the House poised to vote on H.R. 1, we asked for evidence behind McDaniel’s claim. A spokesperson for the RNC pointed to the ACLU’s own writings — letters to lawmakers and statements issued in 2019 and 2021 detailing their criticisms of H.R. 1.

The ACLU is officially nonpartisan, but its advocacy for immigrants, the LGBTQ community, women and prisoners is often aligned with policies supported by the left. At the same time, the ACLU’s advocacy for free speech can sometimes put it on the same side as groups or individuals on the right.

The ACLU has long opposed certain campaign finance proposals. 

In 2019, the ACLU told lawmakers it "opposes H.R.1" and asked lawmakers to amend the bill to "avoid unconstitutionally burdening political speech." The ACLU said it supported goals in the bill to make it easier to vote, including restoring voting rights for felons, stopping the purge of inactive voters, increasing online voter registration and providing for no excuse absentee voting. 

That initial bill passed the House but never reached a vote in the Senate.

When Democrats introduced a new version in January, the ACLU told lawmakers that it had "significant constitutional concerns."

"We have not officially opposed the bill in the 117th Congress," Kathleen Ruane, senior legislative counsel for the ACLU, told PolitiFact. "Following the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on our democratic system of government, a serious legislative effort to restore and strengthen our republic is needed now more than ever, and we strongly support many of the voting rights provisions in H.R. 1."

But the ACLU said requirements for organizations to disclose certain donors are "onerous and dangerous."

The ACLU’s 2021 letter largely highlights its objections to the Shield Act and the Disclose Act, two Democratic bills rolled into H.R. 1. 

While the ACLU said it agrees with the Shield Act’s goal to limit interference of foreign adversaries in elections, the act goes too far. 

The group objected to a provision that makes campaign finance law violations deportable offenses. It also argued in 2019 that the Shield Act would prohibit foreign governments or foreign parties from creating paid ads. 

"If the governments of Germany, Canada, and France wanted to take out a nationwide advertisement during the Super Bowl in 2020 explaining why it is so important for the United States to recommit to the Paris Climate Agreement, the Shield Act would forbid that speech," the ACLU wrote.

The Disclose Act requires additional disclosures related to political spending, including further restrictions on foreign money in elections. It demands that organizations that make campaign-related disbursements of more than $10,000 in an election reporting cycle disclose the names of donors who give $10,000 or more. The legislation makes it harder for "dark money" groups to avoid disclosures.

Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts, as long as they don't directly coordinate with candidates or party committees. Super PACs publicly disclose their receipts and expenditures, though they sometimes get big donations from nonprofits, which don't have to disclose their donors.

The ACLU said it supports mandated reporting of spending for public communications that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate for office, but it said the Disclose Act goes beyond those bounds. The legislation "could harm political advocacy and expose non-profit donors to harassment and threats of violence should their support for organizations be subject to forced disclosure," the ACLU wrote.

In 2019, the ACLU also said it objected to at least sections of other legislation incorporated into H.R. 1, calling some of the language too vague or invasive of donor privacy.

McDaniel’s tweet maintains that H.R. 1 "threatens our freedom of speech" — and she posits that she is in agreement with the ACLU on this point.

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The liberal Brennan Center for Justice at NYU disagrees with the ACLU’s conclusions that the bill will interfere with free speech, said Daniel Weiner, the center’s deputy director of election reform. Weiner said the goal isn’t to target everyday Americans making small donations, but rather big corporations and powerful interest groups. 

"It’s misleading to characterize transparency measures as a significant restriction on freedom of speech," he said. "The notion that these (powerful) groups will be shrinking violets who might get criticized from spending and it might drive them from the public square is a bit much to take."

In a letter to lawmakers in support of H.R. 1, a few former ACLU officials joined with several constitutional scholars in calling the legislation the "most significant pro-democracy legislation since the Voting Rights Act of 1965."

"We do not view First Amendment concerns over the precise scope of disclosure requirements affecting large donors to tax-exempt organizations operating on the margins of electoral politics as outweighing the need for expeditious enactment of the clearly desirable aspects of H.R. 1 into law," they wrote.

The Institute for Free Speech, a conservative group that advocates against campaign finance restrictions, sides with the ACLU in arguing that it would chill free speech.

"These advocates of restricting free speech want to have it both ways, by arguing that restricting speech is necessary or beneficial, but also that what they propose does not restrict speech," said Bradley A. Smith, chairman of the institute and a professor at Capital University Law School, in an email to PolitiFact.

McDaniel tweeted that the "ACLU opposes HR 1" on grounds that "it threatens our freedom of speech."

The ACLU opposed the 2019 version of H.R. 1, saying multiple provisions would limit free speech. When Democrats unveiled the bill again in January, ACLU said it still held many of their earlier concerns and called some sections "onerous and dangerous." But the ACLU has stopped short of opposing the bill in 2021. 

While it is clear that freedom of speech for political donors is among the ACLU’s concerns, the ACLU has not opposed the bill in 2021.

The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half True.

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