Cite as: 525 U. S. 182 (1999)
Opinion of OTMConnor, J.
III
Most disturbing is the Court's holding that Colorado's disclosure provisions are partially unconstitutional. Colorado requires that ballot-initiative proponents file two types of reports: monthly reports during the period of circulation and a final report when the initiative petition is submitted. See Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1-40-121 (1998). The monthly reports must include the names of paid circulators, their business and residential addresses, and the amount of money paid and owed to each paid circulator during the relevant month. See § 1-40-121(2). The final report also must include the paid circulators' names and addresses, as well as the total amount paid to each circulator. See § 1-40-121(1). The Tenth Circuit invalidated the reports to the extent they revealed this information. See ante, at 201. The Court affirms this decision, without expressing an opinion on the validity of the reports to the extent they reveal other information, on the ground that forcing the proponents of ballot initiatives to reveal the identities of their paid circulators is tenuously related to the interests disclosure serves and impermissibly targets paid circulators. See ante, at 202- 203. I, however, would reverse the Tenth Circuit on the ground that Colorado's disclosure provision is a reasonable regulation of the electoral process.
Colorado's disclosure provision is a step removed from the one-on-one, communicative aspects of petition circulation, and it burdens this communication in only an incidental manner. Like the mandatory affidavit that must accompany every set of signed petitions, the required disclosure reports "revea[l] the name of the petition circulator and [are] public record[s] . . . [, but are] separated from the moment the circulator speaks," see ante, at 198. This characteristic indeed makes the disclosure reports virtually indistinguishable from the affidavit requirement, which the Court suggests is a permissible regulation of the electoral process, see ante, at 200, and similarly lessens any chilling effect the reports might
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