Supreme Court
Reuters: For Supreme Court, COVID-19 response is ‘pretty challenging’: ex-Roberts clerk
By Alison Frankel
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it was postponing oral arguments in all of the cases it was scheduled to hear in April…
One of the delayed cases is Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, which, as I’ve reported, asks the justices to decide whether a 2015 amendment to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act violates the First Amendment and, if so, whether the entire law is unconstitutional. Roman Martinez, an appellate specialist at Latham & Watkins and a onetime clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts, represents the coalition of political consultants that contends the TCPA is unconstitutional. Last Thursday, before the Supreme Court announced the delay, Martinez was on the phone with the rest of his team, trying to figure out how to get ready for a Supreme Court argument without leaving his house in the Maryland suburbs.
[Editor’s Note: The Institute for Free Speech filed an amicus brief in the case in support of the American Association of Political Consultants. You can read the brief here.]
Washington Post: Supreme inequality
By Adam Cohen
In Nixon’s first three years in office, he appointed four Supreme Court justices, one of the fastest rates of turnover in history. The new members – Warren Burger (the new chief justice), Harry Blackmun, William Rehnquist and Powell – were more sympathetic to big business than their predecessors.
The ways in which the court drove inequality were wide-ranging. In 1976, in Buckley v. Valeo, it held for the first time that money is First Amendment-protected speech and struck down limits on spending in political campaigns. That began the dismantling of campaign finance laws, clearing the way for wealthy Americans, and then corporations, to use unlimited amounts of money to influence elections. In labor law, the court turned against unions – a trend that reached its nadir in 2018 with Janus v. AFSCME, which held that government unions cannot require nonmembers to pay fees for being represented in collective bargaining…
As for the nation’s nonprogressive tax system, a significant portion of blame lies with the court’s unraveling of campaign finance laws starting in the 1970s: These decisions rely on the dubious claim that money is speech and therefore deserves constitutional protection. The court’s rulings gave more political power than ever to the rich, who used that influence to drive down their own tax rates.
Higher taxes on rich people are popular – in one recent poll, 76 percent of registered voters wanted them to pay more. But wealthy campaign contributors have been blunt about conditioning future donations on lower tax rates. When the 2017 Trump tax bill was pending, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned colleagues that if Republicans did not get it passed, the “financial contributions will stop” and incumbents would lose their jobs.
Congress
RealClearPolitics: Union Provision Was Secretly Slipped Into COVID-19 Relief Bill
By Susan Crabtree
A provision in the sprawling $2.2 trillion relief legislation, which lawmakers rushed through Congress to help workers and employers in an economy cratering from a global pandemic, would impose a gag rule on mid-sized businesses when it comes to union efforts to organize workers…
[T]he neutrality mandate managed to get slipped in without much GOP scrutiny – to the chagrin of free-market groups who argue it will impinge on businesses’ First Amendment rights to speak to their workers about union organizing efforts.
“The gag rule has been something that the unions have been fighting to enact for a long period of time, and it has nothing to do with the virus or the economy,” David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, told RealClearPolitics. “Shame on Republicans for not catching it.”
“What does a company surrendering their First Amendment rights have to do with the health and economic safety of Americans?” complained F. Vincent Vernuccio, a senior fellow with the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “It doesn’t.”
Media
Las Vegas Review-Journal: Group called Free Press embraces the opposite
By The Editorial Board
It takes a certain kind of witless cynicism for a group that calls itself “Free Press” to demand that the federal government censor broadcasters in their coronavirus coverage. But here we are.
Last week, the leftists behind Free Press petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to impose restrictions on how media outlets cover President Donald Trump’s daily briefings on the worldwide pandemic. The group argues that the president is spreading dangerous falsehoods at these news conferences, and thus government regulators must step in to protect the public…
As a remedy for its many grievances, the organization asked that the FCC…either prevent broadcasters from airing the briefings uncensored or force them to include disclaimers when Mr. Trump speaks…
Fortunately, the FCC reacted quickly and decisively to this inane proposal…
“At best, the petition rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of the commission’s limited role in regulating broadcast journalism,” an FCC statement explained. “And at worst, the petition is a brazen attempt to pressure broadcasters to squelch their coverage of a president that Free Press dislikes and silence other commentators with whom Free Press disagrees.”
Washington Post: Playboy correspondent demands access to White House briefing room
By Erik Wemple
Coronavirus has caused much-publicized scarcities of commodities, including toilet paper, flour and all kinds of medical supplies. Now add another: seats in the White House’s James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, where 14 reporters spread out among 49 seats in compliance with social distancing guidelines.
Brian Karem, an outspoken correspondent for Playboy, doesn’t have one… He wants in. “I provide a distinctive voice to the proceedings,” notes Karem…
“The president has engaged me in the past and knows I won’t back down. We need that in addition to other voices in the briefings.”
In a statement issued on Monday, attorney Ted Boutrous, who specializes in First Amendment cases, signaled that he’d contacted the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) regarding Karem’s outsider status…
It was the WHCA that presided over the spreading-out of journalists…
“We understand the need to limit attendees to ensure health and safety, but a fair, neutral, nondiscriminatory process is essential. We have requested that @whca give @BrianKarem and similarly-situated reporters fair access to the rotation for press conferences,” said Boutrous on Twitter.
Salon: Washington state group sues Fox News and Rupert Murdoch over its “deceptive” coronavirus coverage
By Igor Derysh
A Washington state group filed a lawsuit against Fox News, owner Rupert Murdoch and cable providers that seeks a court order barring the right-leaning from airing false information about the virus. The lawsuit was first reported by the Times of San Diego.
The suit, which was filed in King County on Thursday by the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE), requests an injunction to bar the network from “interfering with reasonable and necessary measures to contain the virus by publishing further false and deceptive content.” …
But attorneys previously expressed skepticism that the network could face legal ramifications.
“Fox News has been grotesquely irresponsible but I struggle to imagine a plausible legal theory under which it might be sued here,” Susan Hennessey, the executive director of Lawfare, said in March.
Georgia law professor Eric Segall added that any lawsuit would “have to show actual malice or reckless disregard,” which “could never be shown here.”
“No one is going to hold liable TV news people for reporting what they think is the news relating to millions,” he said. “No court would go for it.”
Independent Groups
Fulcrum: Political love in the time of Covid
By Perry Waag
The entire democracy reform movement, with more than 130 organizations, raises approximately $150 million in contributions every year…
[With the current public health emergency, we ] have an opportunity now to get the attention of our potential backers, especially while so many of them are at home and maybe have unexpected time to spend. But obviously, given the devastating economic consequences that continue to unfold, philanthropy of all kinds will be much harder to come by as everyone focuses more on their own necessities before making donations to their favorite charities…
We need to show would-be donors that they wouldn’t need to give as much to other causes, like curing cancer or slowing climate change, if we fixed our politics first.
Just as with candidates, money will get us noticed, but it won’t hold the public’s attention for long if our message does not resonate. Thankfully, our message does resonate – we just need the funds to make more Americans aware of the solutions for making their government work better for them.
Protocol: Big tech’s ad rules leave plenty of room for dark money to hide
By Issie Lapowsky
Nearly four years after the U.S. presidential election exposed how little Americans know about who’s behind the political ads they see online, these ads remain almost completely unregulated. Facebook and Google have built massive ad archives that show who’s targeting their users with political messages and how. Given that they account for more than 75 percent of political digital ad spending, that’s a start. But those efforts are voluntary on the part of the companies, their requirements vary, and they reveal nothing about the ads appearing off their platforms.
This issue is the subject of a new report by the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington DC-based non-profit that advocates for government accountability. The report analyzes the difference between the amount of digital advertising that dark money groups like the Big Tent Project have reported to the FEC and the amount that appears in the few online ad archives that tech companies have created. The authors found that the vast majority of that money remains unaccounted for. This, they argue, suggests that despite tech giants’ best attempts at self-regulation and transparency, plenty of loopholes remain, allowing political advertisers to hide their tracks.
Daily Beast: Dem Groups Begin Digital Assault of Trump Over Coronavirus
By Lachlan Markay
Swing state voters are being targeted with political ads hammering President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. But the organizations behind the ads are taking steps to ensure that they and their funders remain shrouded from public view.
This week, Not In Our America, a new Facebook advertiser, began buying up promoted space on the platform to attack the administration’s coronavirus response in the key 2020 states of North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona…
The amounts spent are relatively small so far. Not In Our America dropped less than $1,600 on Facebook ads on Monday, its first full day in existence. But the ads reached as many as 70,000 people in those four states.
Those totals are likely to increase significantly over the coming weeks. But it’s not clear that voters who see Not In Our America’s ads in their Facebook feeds will have any idea who is trying to sway their votes-or providing the financing to do so.
Online Speech Platforms
Politico: Diamond and Silk’s Twitter account locked for breaking coronavirus misinformation rules
By Cristiano Lima
Twitter briefly locked the account of online personalities and prominent Trump allies Diamond and Silk over a tweet that violated the company’s rules against coronavirus misinformation, a spokesperson for the social media firm said.
It’s the latest instance of Twitter taking enforcement action against a notable surrogate of President Donald Trump for ruling afoul of its recently enacted rules against medical hoaxes and misleading information [related to] Covid-19…
“The only way we can become immune to the environment; we must be out in the environment. Quarantining people inside of their houses for extended periods will make people sick!” the pair tweeted from their official account, which boasts 1.4 million followers.
The account later appeared to be unlocked, indicating the violating tweet had been deleted. A public message appended over their post reads, “This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules.”
Twitter recently expanded its rules against medical misinformation to include posts that contradict guidance from authoritative health agencies. The social media company in recent weeks has separately found that posts by Fox News host Laura Ingraham and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani broke its rules against Covid-19 misinformation.
Candidates and Campaigns
Townhall: IA Senate: Greenfield Says She ‘Cannot Control What Outside Groups Do’ After Ethics Complaint
By Reagan McCarthy
Iowa’s Democratic Senate primary continues to be a target for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as he aims to get Theresa Greenfield, his hand-picked candidate, over the primary finish line. Sen. Schumer’s fundraising group, Senate Majority PAC, has pumped money into Iowa in support of Greenfield and is wasting no time attacking GOP incumbent Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA).
Greenfield echoes Democratic talking points about “money in politics” and reversing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, which was a huge win for free speech:
“Theresa is committed to building a grassroots campaign by Iowans, for Iowans and won’t take a dime from corporate PACs. Theresa has received grassroots contributions from all 99 counties in Iowa, and has been endorsed by dozens of leaders from around the state,” Greenfield’s website says.
When asked [by The Iowa Starting Line] about Senate Majority PAC bankrolling her campaign and running television ads in support of her, Greenfield said, “I cannot control what outside groups are going to do.”
Greenfield’s campaign was recently hit with a complaint from a watchdog group, Foundation for Accountability and Trust, claiming illegal collusion with Senate Majority PAC.
By Nicole Goodkind
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders announced an end to his presidential run Wednesday morning…
“We showed the world that we could take on a corrupt campaign finance system and run a campaign without being dependent on the wealthy and powerful,” he said in a speech broadcast live from his website. “I can’t imagine that any candidate has ever been blessed with a stronger and more dedicated group of people who have taken our message to every part of the country…”
Breitbart: Bernie Sanders Wasted over $160 Million on Failed Presidential Campaign
By Charlie Spiering
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wasted over $160 million on his failed presidential campaign, according to the latest federal election records.
The campaign finance report filed on February 29, 2020, showed that Sanders spent $160,984,978 on his campaign, according to Open Secrets.
Millions more were likely spent as Sanders continued to campaign through March and into April, despite cutting back on campaign activities [due to Covid-19].
Sanders was the most prolific fundraiser in the Democrat party, raising over $179 million from donors. Small donors contributing less than $200 represented 54 percent of his total donors, according to Open Secrets.
The self-described democratic socialist is the last Democrat candidate to leave the race, despite spending significantly less than several self-funded billionaire candidates. Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg spent $600 million on his failed campaign and Tom Steyer wasted $252 million.
Democrats have already spent over $1 billion in their attempts to be the candidate to challenge President Donald Trump for the presidency in 2020.
The States
Missoulian: Montana GOP trying to undermine election integrity
By Linda McCulloch
I was alarmed by the recent revelations that out-of-state signature-gatherers employed by the same organization hired to qualify the Green Party for the ballot in 2018 were once again collecting signatures for the Green Party, despite the Montana Green Party’s unequivocal public condemnation of the effort.
Until recently, no group had come forward to admit their financial support for this operation – aside from an out-of-state dark money group that abandoned its operation in its infancy. And despite a state law requiring groups to register as a minor party qualification committee within five days of raising or spending more than $500 on signature gathering. On March 6, the secretary of state certified the Green Party to be on the ballot, despite the funding source behind the campaign being a mystery and the funder having clearly violated state law in the course of acquiring the certification.
The mystery of the Green Party signatures was finally solved when it was reported that the Montana GOP had been bankrolling the covert operation all along, spending $100,000 to finance the signature-gathering effort. Republicans led the deception that put petition gatherers in the parking lots of grocery stores and post offices wearing buttons and insignia that implied they were Green Party members.
This fraudulent conduct – intentionally designed to deceive Montana voters and meddle in our democratic process – is beneath Montana…
During my tenure as secretary of state from 2009-2017, I worked to uphold the integrity of our elections. The fact that the Montana GOP has engaged in this effort is a new and disturbing level of election fraud.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Here’s how dark-money groups flooded Milwaukee mailboxes while keeping their donors secret
By Daniel Bice
Seizing on an opportunity – and a captive audience – dark-money groups flooded Milwaukee County mailboxes with sometimes dubious claims in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s contest. These groups are usually nonprofits that don’t have to reveal their source of funding and, sometimes, how much they are spending.
In the Milwaukee County executive’s contest, a local liberal group sent out flyers – without saying who paid for them – as it sought to counter the heavy spending by outgoing County Exec Chris Abele and a national pro-school-choice group…
And a shadowy group out of Virginia tried to tip the balance in the Wauwatosa mayor’s contest by sending out five rounds of flyers criticizing one of the candidates without ever explaining who was underwriting these attacks.
Matt Rothschild, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said it’s no surprise that dark-money groups are getting involved locally.
“Our democracy is drowning under a tsunami of dark money, which is now spilling over into the most local of races,” Rothschild said. “Until we require these groups to disclose their donors, until they’ve got to tell us who is paying for the mud that’s splattering our screens, the voters of Wisconsin will continue to be swamped with these nasty ads.”
