In the News
John Locke Foundation: The High Stakes of H.R. 1: Election Integrity, Speech, and Privacy
Event: March 15, 2021, 12:00 PM-1:00 PM
It is called the “For the People Act of 2021.” It’s anything but. Passed in the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 220 to 210, with no Republican support, H.R. 1 is raising alarm bells on a variety of fronts. In this conversation, our experts will discuss the bill’s impact on the integrity of elections, the negative effect on public discourse and donor privacy, and the potential for its provisions to lead to one-party rule. Each of these is alarming. Taken together they are the recipe for instability in a country already suffering from discontent and turmoil.
Featuring:
-Bradley A. Smith
Chairman, Institute for Free Speech; Former Chairman, Federal Election Commission
-Rep. David Rouzer
NC-7th District, U.S. House of Representatives
-Dr. Andy Jackson
Director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity, John Locke Foundation
-Jon Guze
Senior Fellow, Legal Studies, John Locke Foundation
Springfield News-Sun: FirstEnergy pumped $1M into backing DeWine, records show
By Laura A. Bischoff, Columbus Bureau
Akron-based FirstEnergy and FirstEnergy Solutions donated more than $1 million to nonprofit groups and political campaigns since 2017 to help elect Gov. Mike DeWine, according to a Dayton Daily News investigation…
Bradley A. Smith, a law professor at Capital University and former commissioner of the Federal Elections Commission, said: “It sounds like there is a lot of transparency. I see these things and I think was Gov. DeWine’s position on House Bill 6 any secret? I think voters knew that and understood that. I think anybody who is the governor of the state who would not have at least some contact, perhaps an occasional direct meeting and so on, with a major employer of the state like FirstEnergy is probably being derelict in his duty.”
Smith is the founder of the Institute for Free Speech, a Washington D.C.-based group, and an advocate for rolling back campaign finance restrictions. Most political spending is done by candidates, parties and political action committees, according to Smith. Undisclosed political money represents less than 5% of all political giving nationally, he said.
“I listen to this and I say, ‘So, he was engaged in politics? And we should be shocked by that?’ I don’t think that’s right. Lots of people supported HB6 and now everybody is sort of aghast by HB6‚” Smith said. “…I’m not sure that the substantive arguments in favor of it or opposed to it have changed.”
The debate should focus on the substance of House Bill 6 and those who might have violated the law, Smith said, while others who complied with the law shouldn’t be tarred by the actions of others.
FEC
Axios: Biden urged to pack FEC with “pro-enforcement” members
By Lachlan Markay
President Biden is being encouraged to effectively pack the nation’s top campaign finance regulator with officials who will more doggedly enforce laws regulating political money, Axios has learned.
The notoriously gridlocked Federal Election Commission has rankled reformers for years. Now some are pushing Biden to abandon protocol by sidestepping congressional Republicans and nominating regulators who will more aggressively enforce campaign finance rules.
A three-page memo, shared with officials in the White House and obtained by Axios, details a strategy for effectively remaking the FEC.
The memo’s author, a prominent voice in the campaign finance reform world, provided it to Axios on the condition of anonymity and said it was shared with White House staff last month.
By law, the six-member FEC can have no more than three commissioners from either major political party…
One of two new Republican commissioners, Sean Cooksey, was confirmed in December to a term expiring at the end of April.
Biden could, the memo argues, nominate a true Democrat to replace Cooksey, effectively giving the commission a four-member “pro-enforcement majority” while staying within the three-member party limit.
“The president has an immediate and unilateral opportunity to establish a solid and enduring pro-enforcement governing majority,” the memo says.
PACs
Bloomberg Law: Corporations Weighing Broadened Criteria for Political Donations
By Megan R. Wilson
Employees and shareholders are poised to have more influence over how dollars flow from business political action committees, as corporations and trade associations re-examine their approaches to political giving in the wake of the insurrection at the Capitol.
In the days after Jan. 6, at least 27 business PACs announced policies that would take the election certification vote into account when making donations, according to an analysis by Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Government. At least 40 more halted all PAC contributions…
When or if the pauses are lifted, freezing out the members of Congress who objected to certifying the election could be only the start, as stances on equality issues, climate change, and social justice policies are taken more into account.
“The events of January 6 were a game changer for corporate PACs,” said Caleb Burns, partner at Wiley, whose practice includes advising corporations and their PACs. “It caused them to think beyond traditional business issues, such as taxes and regulation, and restarted a conversation about the types of issues a PAC should consider when making contributions.” …
Most of the PACs that have announced a break from political giving are also reevaluating their standards for deciding how PAC donations are doled out.
Reuters: Republican donations surge despite corporate boycott after Capitol riots
By James Oliphant, Jason Lange, Julia Harte, and Tim Reid
Right after the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, dozens of U.S. companies announced they would halt political donations to the 147 Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn Donald Trump’s presidential election loss. Two months later, there is little sign that the corporate revolt has done any real damage to Republican fundraising.
If anything, the biggest backers of Trump’s false election-fraud narrative – such as Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene – have been rewarded with a flood of grassroots donations, more than offsetting the loss of corporate money. And contributions from both small donors and rich individuals looking to fight the Democratic agenda have poured into the party’s fundraising apparatus.
The boycott’s limited impact underscores the diminishing role of corporate money in U.S. politics. Individual donations of $200 or less have made up a growing share of campaign money in recent years, while the share given by corporate America shrinks…
Reuters examined contributions by more than 45 corporate donor committees that vowed to cut off the 147 Republicans – eight senators and 139 members of the House of Representatives. The review found that the political action committees gave about $5 million to the lawmakers during the 2019-2020 election cycle – or only about 1% of the money the lawmakers raised, according to [FEC] disclosures.
By comparison, Republican fundraising operations supporting Senate and House candidates raked in a combined $15.8 million in January alone on the strength of small-dollar donations. These groups outraised their Democratic counterparts by more than $2 million that month, regulatory filings show.
New York Post: Biden-boosting influencer ‘Brooklyn Dad’ slammed for taking PAC money
By Natalie O’Neill
A Joe Biden-boosting social media influencer known as “Brooklyn Dad Defiant” came under fire Wednesday for reportedly failing to disclose that he accepted tens of thousands of dollars from a Democratic political action committee.
Majid Padellan, who runs the nearly 900,000-follower-strong Twitter account — and has been slammed previously for urging Bernie Sanders to drop out of the 2020 presidential race — allegedly accepted more than $57,000 from a pro-Biden PAC, Really American, last year, according to Refinery29.com, which cited tweets circulating Tuesday.
In his Twitter bio, Padellan says he’s a senior adviser to the PAC — but followers slammed him for failing to admit he allegedly got paid to post pro-Biden opinions and theories, according to the outlet…
[One user] added, “There’s a difference between acknowledging you’re a senior advisor to a PAC and disclosing that you’re being paid to influence American voters on social media. Every tweet & the profile should include a *Paid Advertisement disclaimer.” …
Other Twitter users defended him, saying public figures and influencers often get paid to promote content on social media.
Online Speech Platforms
Daily Beast: Facebook’s Moderators Took Down the Tech Giant’s Own Pro-Equality Ads
By Blake Montgomery
Just weeks after Facebook purged its own Black History Month ads by mistake, Women’s History Month ads are also being flagged and deleted.
Though the tech giant received media praise for its “refreshing” Black History Month content, it was one of dozens of advertisers that saw its ad campaigns about Black history removed from the social network in February. Among the others were a Fortune 500 energy company, the Chicago Bulls, the city government of Denver, a church, a grade school, health-care providers, a book store, universities, and history museums.
The cycle appears primed to start again, this time targeting Women’s History Month ads. Facebook eliminated a Feb. 26-Mar. 1 campaign on the women’s suffrage movement created by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. Promotions focusing on women from AmeriCorps, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Connecticut Office of Tourism, a New Zealand salmon brand, a tutoring company, and a historical museum have also been erased since the start of March.
Facebook’s moderation system flagged and removed 14 “Facebook celebrates Black History Month” promotions run via the company’s main page, according to the Facebook Ad Library. The ads were axed for appearing without disclaimers noting they concerned “social issues, elections or politics.” All featured photos and videos of Black women speaking about their work and their lives—one as a therapist, others as skaters, another as a doula.
The States
The Tribune: Kentucky Senate votes to make it a crime to taunt police
By Piper Hudspeth Blackburn
It could become a crime to taunt a police officer in Kentucky, under a bill that passed the state Senate on Thursday.
The measure was filed months after Louisville, the state’s largest city, became the site of huge protests in the wake of the police killing of Breonna Taylor. The bill passed the Republican-dominated Senate 22-11 and now awaits House input.
Under the legislation, anyone who “accosts, insults, taunts, or challenges a law enforcement officer with offensive or derisive words, or by gestures or other physical contact, that would have a direct tendency to provoke a violent response” would be guilty of a misdemeanor and face up to 90 days in jail and fines.
The proposal also increases penalties for rioting. For instance, those charged with rioting would be required to be held for a minimum of 48 hours. Another provision would criminalize aiming “a light, a laser pointer, an activated horn or other noise-making device towards the head” of a first responder.
Several Republican senators who voted against the bill shared concerns that some parts of it would violate First Amendment rights and strain the judicial system. Nevertheless, they signaled support for the bill if some parts of it were amended in the House.
Washington Examiner: Red-state bills to stop online censorship could backfire, conservative lawyers warn
By Nihal Krishan
Republican legislation meant to stop censorship on social media platforms could backfire and result in less conservative speech and a number of onerous lawsuits that will hamstring their goals, conservative lawyers say.
Republican-controlled legislatures around the country have passed laws or are pushing for bills that would restrict Big Tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter from moderating content or blocking users on their platforms. Lawmakers in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and North Dakota have introduced bills that mandate greater transparency in regard to content moderation and prevent social media platforms from canceling conservative speech. Utah’s Republican governor is expected to approve such legislation shortly.
If the anti-censorship bills become law and are enforced, social media platforms will be incentivized to change their content guidelines and rules to restrict more content out of an abundance of caution, conservative lawyers say. This would reduce the likelihood of platforms getting sued, the lawyers said, while also meeting the needs of a majority of their users who want the removal of content that is false, misleading, or violence-inducing to be removed.
“It’s ironic that these laws are in the name of free speech, but if you enforce them, it’s going to result in less speech online,” said James Czerniawski, a tech policy analyst at Libertas Institute, a conservative think tank in Utah.
Alabama Political Reporter: Rioting bill delayed after concerns it could stifle free speech
By Eddie Burkhalter
The Alabama House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday sent a bill who’s sponsor says would strengthen criminal penalties for rioting, but that others worry would criminalize peaceful protesting, to a subcommittee for further work.
Rep. Jim Hill, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, sent the bill to a subcommittee at the conclusion of a public hearing on the bill, and at the request of the bill’s co-signer and of Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, who voiced concern that the bill could have dramatic “unintended consequences” that could result in the felony arrests of peaceful protestors.
Rep. Allen Treadaway, R-Morris, former assistant police chief of the Birmingham Police Department, said his House Bill 445 does not aim to stifle free speech, but rather to prevent violence seen at protests in Birmingham and elsewhere over the summer.
Tallahassee Democrat: Bill to crack down on violent protests marches forward in Florida House
By James Call
Florida Republican leaders’ efforts to crack down on violent protests is ready for a House floor debate after it cleared its final committee stop Wednesday evening on a party-line vote.
State Rep. Juan Alfonso Fernandez-Barquin, R-Miami, guided the “Combating Public Disorder Act,” also known as HB 1, through criticism by Democrats, free-speech advocates, college students and political activists.
The League of Women Voters of Florida, Florida Faith and Advocacy Office, Leon County Democratic Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation of Tampa Bay, among others, spoke against the increased criminal penalties, additional costs and what they called an infringement of free speech that the bill creates.
