McDonald v. FEC (25-153 / 25-10830)

On March 2, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (the appeals court) upheld the district court’s dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Background

On February 18, 2025, Tony McDonald (plaintiff) filed suit claiming that the disclosure of contributor names and addresses of conduit contributions not exceeding $200 violates the First Amendment. As relief, plaintiff sought a permanent injunction barring the FEC from requiring this information from fundraising platforms when reporting conduit contributions and asked the court to order the FEC to remove plaintiff’s past small-amount conduit contributions from the public record. On April 22, 2025, the FEC filed a motion to dismiss.

The district court granted the Commission’s motion on July 9, 2025, finding that the plaintiff failed to allege an injury in fact and did not have Article III standing to pursue his claim. The district court held that the public disclosure of donor information is not a constitutional injury in and of itself. The plaintiff challenged that decision, but the appeals court agreed with the earlier findings and affirmed the district court’s dismissal.

Analysis

The appeals court determined that the alleged harms from disclosure of plaintiff’s contributions are merely speculative and do not establish injury in fact. Additionally, plaintiff’s fears of “chilled speech” are insufficient to establish a First Amendment injury. The appeals court concluded that “McDonald’s speculation about what he might do in response to the possibility of future disclosures, and what someone else might think based on such unspecified hypothetical disclosures, is a “subjective” chill of the kind that we have consistently excluded from this exceptional form of standing.”

Accordingly, the appeals court affirmed the district court’s order and dismissed the case without prejudice.

Source: FEC Record — March 2026; July 2025; March 2025