Today, in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, the Supreme Court upheld a basic truth of the First Amendment: Americans have a right to anonymously financially support charities and political nonprofits. This was true when the Supreme Court first upheld that principle in a 1958 case called NAACP v. Alabama, which arose from that state’s demand for a list of NAACP donors in order to intimidate supporters. And it’s true today, in a deeply polarized America where giving to the “wrong” political cause can have dire social consequences.

It was also true in the Founding era, which was replete with anonymous speech. Thomas Paine initially published Common Sense anonymously, and The Federalist Papers were written under the pseudonym “Publius.” While many commentators will describe this as a sky‐​is‐​falling moment—perhaps comparing it to the much‐​reviled and little‐​understood Citizens United decision—today’s decision is a much needed clarification of long‐​standing First Amendment doctrine: you have a presumptive right to anonymously donate to charities and the government must have an important interest if it mandates disclosure of donors’ names. The Court today held that California’s request for donor disclosure was not “narrowly tailored to an important government interest.”

The case was filed in 2014, and originally named Kamala Harris, then the attorney general of California, as the defendant. (Cato has filed briefs supporting AFPF along the way, as far back as 2015 and up to the Supreme Court.) Nonprofits file a form with the IRS called a Schedule B that lists top donors, and that form is protected from disclosure by the IRS. In 2010, however, California began requesting Schedule Bs from nonprofits that raised money in the state. This wasn’t because of a change in law, but merely because the attorney general’s office decided it wanted the information. And although the attorney general’s office insisted that the Schedule Bs would remain confidential, it was discovered that almost 1,800 Schedule Bs had been posted online.

There was a trial in federal district court, which is quite unique for many constitutional cases. At trial it was shown that the AGs office had allowed a significant amount of donor information to leak, which resulted in actual and serious threats to the donors of AFPF and their co‐​plaintiff Thomas More Law Center (TMLC). The trial judge ruled for AFPF and TMLC because of the demonstrated threats against donors, as well as the fact that the AG’s office didn’t really use the Schedule Bs to monitor charitable fraud as they claimed (only 5 of 540 investigations into charities used the Schedule B). The Ninth Circuit overturned the district court decision which led to the Supreme Court overturning the Ninth Circuit today.

The decision is extremely important, especially now. Although, in the past decade, Democrats have been more prone to railing against “dark money” and calling for all types of donor disclosure, Republicans have increasingly used similar rhetoric in recent years. The search for the “dark money” that funds the left has resulted in studies and attacks on those funding groups like Black Lives Matter. This illustrates a recurring truth of campaign finance policy: the two parties rarely stand on principle rather than interest. When it’s perceived that one party benefits more from big‐​spending donors, attack the role of money in politics. But if your party starts raising more money, as the Democrats have done recently, then money in politics suddenly doesn’t seem like as big of problem. Similarly with donor privacy. It’s easy for the left to attack “dark money” donors to a Koch‐​connected organization like Americans for Prosperity, but should BLM and Planned Parenthood be forced to disclose their donors?

Thankfully we don’t have to answer that question as a matter of policy because the First Amendment answers it for us. The only sensible rule is that privacy is presumed for all charitable giving.

That’s how it was seen by an array of organizations who filed briefs in support of AFPF. Despite the Court splitting 6–3 along “partisan” lines, the amici supporting Americans for Prosperity were anything but partisan. Chief Justice John Roberts pointed this out in his opinion, noting that the “gravity of the privacy concerns in this context is further underscored by the filings of hundreds of organizations as amici curiae in support of the petitioners.” And it wasn’t just political organizations that were in AFPF’s side, but in fact stretched across the “full range of human endeavors: from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Proposition 8 Legal Defense Fund; from the Council on American‐​Islamic Relations to the Zionist Organization of America; from Feeding America—Eastern Wisconsin to PBS Reno.”

Many are wondering whether today’s decision will affect rules about donor disclosure in elections. The decision doesn’t directly address that question because it is about a larger question: the disclosure of top donors for every charity that fundraises in California, political or otherwise. Yet the decision certainly has implications for disclosure in the election context. The Court declined to apply strict scrutiny to donor disclosure, choosing instead “exacting scrutiny.” Differentiating between the two tests can be difficult—a little like counting metaphysical angels dancing on the head of a pin, to be honest—but today’s decision shows that the exacting scrutiny standard “has real teeth,” in Justice Samuel Alito’s words.

And that’s good because there are some truly absurd donor disclosure laws that serve no government interest, much less an important one. Idaho, for example, requires registration for individuals who spend $100 over a year on their own political speech (not contributions to candidates). Delaware requires any organization that merely mentions the name of a Delaware candidate to disclose donors that contributed a total of $100 over a four‐​year period, so $25 per year. It’s hard to imagine laws like those can withstand exacting scrutiny with “teeth.”

But the last decision of the term was a welcome one. It is now common for people to be lambasted for their donations or, in one weird instance, for not donating enough to BLM. Today’s decision protects all Americans, not just billionaires.