Columbus, OH – On Monday, The Buckeye Institute filed its fifth amicus brief in Texas Top Cop Shop v. Blanche, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review and combine this case with National Small Business United v. Bessent, and overturn the Corporate Transparency Act—an Orwellian federal surveillance program of small businesses.

“The Corporate Transparency Act is a sweeping, ill-advised, and misleadingly-named law that gives the federal government power to collect private information on small business owners,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. “While the Trump administration has suspended the law’s draconian reporting requirements, mere executive forbearance is not a statutory repeal, and the constitutional question at stake in this case should not be left to presidential discretion.” 

In this latest amicus brief, The Buckeye Institute argues that pairing Texas Top Cop Shop and National Small Business United will give the court a more complete picture of who the Corporate Transparency Act impacts and the serious Fourth and First Amendment questions raised by the CTA’s reporting requirements. The Buckeye Institute further argues that the suspension of the CTA’s reporting requirements is temporary. The CTA remains law, and the federal government may begin enforcing it at any time, leaving small businesses caught in the federal government’s unconstitutional surveillance program.

The heavy-handed Corporate Transparency Act—which the federal district court already said is “likely unconstitutional”—requires approximately 32 million small businesses to register with the federal government the names, addresses, dates of birth, and copies of an unexpired passport or driver’s license for each of their beneficial owners. Failure to do so will result in criminal penalties and a $500 fine for every day the report is late, incomplete, or inaccurate.

The Center for Individual Rights (CIR) represents Texas Top Cop Shop in this case. The Buckeye Institute’s four previous amicus briefs can be found here, here, here, and here.

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