Illinois ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates, Inc., 538 U.S. 600, 20 (2003)

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Cite as: 538 U. S. 600 (2003)

Opinion of the Court

funds would go to VietNow's specific "charitable purposes," id., at 8, ¶ 29, the "amount of funds being paid over to charity was merely incidental to the fund raising effort," which was made "for the private pecuniary benefit of [Telemarketers] and their agents," id., at 9, ¶ 35. Cf., e. g., Voices for Freedom, CCH Trade Reg. ¶ 23,080 (1993) [1987-1993 Transfer Binder] (complaint against fundraisers who, inter alia, represented that "substantial portions of the funds from [the sale of commemorative bracelets] would be used to support a message center for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf," but "did not use substantial portions of the bracelet-sales proceeds to support the message center").

Fraud actions so tailored, targeting misleading affirmative representations about how donations will be used, are plainly distinguishable, as we next discuss, from the measures invalidated in Schaumburg, Munson, and Riley: So long as the emphasis is on what the fundraisers misleadingly convey, and not on percentage limitations on solicitors' fees per se, such actions need not impermissibly chill protected speech.

B

In Schaumburg, Munson, and Riley, the Court invalidated laws that prohibited charitable organizations or fundraisers from engaging in charitable solicitation if they spent high percentages of donated funds on fundraising—whether or not any fraudulent representations were made to potential donors. Truthfulness even of all representations was not a defense. See supra, at 612-616. In contrast to the prior restraints inspected in those cases, a properly tailored fraud action targeting fraudulent representations themselves employs no "[b]road prophylactic rul[e]," Schaumburg, 444 U. S., at 637 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), lacking any "nexus . . . [to] the likelihood that the solicitation is fraudulent," Riley, 487 U. S., at 793. Such an action thus falls on the constitutional side of the line the Court's cases draw "between regulation aimed at fraud and regulation

619

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