Loyola College of Law professor Rick Hasen, who runs ElectionLawBlog.com, is part of the team defending the city of San Diego in the Thalheimer v. San Diego case. He said the case is part of a wider plan by opponents of campaign finance laws to weaken regulations in the wake of Citizens United.

Hasen specifically called out attorney Jim Bopp, who has argued for many high-profile campaign finance cases, including Republican National Committee v. Federal Election Commission and Citizens United before it got to the Supreme Court.

“There’s no mystery to what’s going on,” Hasen said. “These groups have seen Citizens United as an opening to challenge a variety of campaign finance laws to try to push the courts in a deregulatory direction.”

Bopp, however, told OpenSecrets Blog that he is not undertaking a major effort to overturn campaign finance law -- he just represents many clients who frequently run up against laws that prevent them from speaking about public policy decisions.

“It’s just naturally part of my practice that these controversies would arise because of the nature of the clients that I have,” he said.

He agreed the Citizens United ruling made campaign finance laws vulnerable to more challenges.

“We always seek to apply the current state of the law to any challenges of campaign finance law that we make,” he said.

Bopp is also involved in cases challenging disclosure laws for groups supporting gay rights-related ballot measures in Maine and California. He is further involved in a Vermont case challenging the state’s classification of a group opposing abortion rights as a political action committee.

Members of Congress have attempted to adopt responses to the changing legal landscape of campaign finance with the DISCLOSE Act, which would add new reporting requirements for independent expenditures, and the Fair Elections Now Act, a voluntary public financing program that would dole out federal campaign funds to candidates who raise enough small-amount donations in their home state.

So far, such efforts have stalled.

The Fair Elections Now Act has not made it out of committee. And while the House passed the DISCLOSE Act in June, Republican senators have so far blocked it in Congress’ upper chamber.

In challenges such as Doe v. Reed, another Bopp case, litigants have turned to battling disclosure law as well.

The Doe v. Reed case resolves around whether the names of financial supporters of a ballot initiative to block domestic partnership rights in Washington state should be made public or not.

The Supreme Court earlier this year rejected Bopp’s arguments that all ballot measure petition-signers had the right to have their names kept secret, as OpenSecrets Blog previously reported. The high court left open the possibility that these particular ballot measure petition-signers might have that ability, however, and the case is still being litigated in lower courts.

“They might just now be turning to disclosure because sadly now that is what’s left,” said Malloy, of the Campaign Legal Center.

Among the cases currently still pending before the Supreme Court is McComish v. Bennett, which challenged Arizona’s public financing mechanism.

In May, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state’s “trigger provision” was constitutional. But a month later, the Supreme Court issued an unusual stay in the case. The decision changed the state’s election laws mid-race while the court decides whether or not to take up the case.

“It’s not clear whether or not the Supreme Court is done with its deregulatory project,” Malloy said.