Whether states are barred by the First Amendment from imposing PAC-status and resulting entity-based burdens on groups lacking Buckley's 'major purpose'

Questions Presented In Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), this Court held that the First Amendment allows government to impose political-committee (“PAC”) status, with its entity-based burdens, only on “organizations ... under the control of a candidate or the major purpose of which is the nomination or election of a candidate,” id. at 79 (emphasis added), to prevent “burdens ... certain to deter ... independent political speech,” id. at 75 (citation omitted). This speech-chilling problem arose because “political committee’ [wa]s defined only in terms of the amount of annual ‘contributions’ and ‘expenditures” by the entity as Montana does, id. at 79, imposing entitybased burdens, not just activity-based reports. This Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that test and recently declared entity-based burdens triggered by PAC-status “expensive,” “extensive,” and “onerous.” Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310, 335-39 (2010). Montana imposes PAC-status without the majorpurpose test, based only on a group’s expenditure of just $251 or more on political speech. In a nonprecedential opinion, the Ninth Circuit rejected the majorpurpose test in state elections, creating a 5-4 Circuit split on the constitutional requirement for the test. And the court below denied a motion for publication, which would have made its opinion precedential, creating private law for Petitioner but not others. Petitioner presents two issues for review: 1. Whether states are barred by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution from imposing PAC-status, with its resulting entity-based burdens, on groups lacking Buckley’s “major purpose.” 2. Whether declaring an opinion “not precedent” (i) violates Article III of the U.S. Constitution by giving courts power beyond “judicial,” or undermines judicial integrity warranting the exercise of this Court’s supervisory power. (ii)