New from the Institute for Free Speech
The Institute for Free Speech last week filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging that a Minnesota law banning all political apparel at polling places be struck down for violating the First Amendment. The case, Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, will be heard in February.
The brief explains that Minnesota failed to “precisely define the expression it wishes to ban. By regulating clothing displaying venerable symbols of the American Revolution itself, and not merely advocacy for or against candidates on the ballot, the State shows that the word ‘political’ has lost any clear meaning. This vagueness, which is particularly troubling in the First Amendment context, poses a trap for the unwary that must be remedied.”
Minnesota’s ban goes farther than other states that prohibit the wearing of campaign apparel (“Vote for Smith!”) at polling places. By contrast, Minnesota bans apparel with “political insignia,” a poorly defined term that has been interpreted to include a t-shirt with the Gadsden flag, a symbol of the American Revolution. Absent a more precise definition of “political insignia,” the ban is a recipe for inconsistent enforcement that infringes on Minnesotans’ First Amendment right to free speech.
The Institute’s involvement in the case began last July with an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. The Court agreed in November.
Looks Like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Missed the Memo on Doing Wealthy Donors’ Bidding
By Alex Cordell
Buell seemed to be especially dissatisfied with Senator Gillibrand, writing that “I believe she miscalculated and has shot herself in the foot,” and adding that it was “to be determined” whether the Senator would continue to receive Buell’s support…
So, if the narrative that politicians only ever act in accordance with the wishes of wealthy donors were true, it would stand to reason that Gillibrand would walk back her original statement, or take some similar action to help save face with a major contributor.
Instead, a spokesman for Gillibrand simply pointed back to the Senator’s original Facebook post urging Franken to resign and her fellow senators not to turn away from a difficult situation. So much for donors pulling the strings.
Further, before the sexual harassment allegations against Franken came to light, he was quickly gaining a reputation in the Democratic Party as a prolific rainmaker – especially among his colleagues up for re-election…
At the end of the day, candidates cannot just appease a small group of wealthy donors, because they need to win over their constituents to get elected in the first place.
Internet Speech Regulation
Reason: ‘Fake News’ Is Not an Excuse to Regulate the Internet (Video)
By Zach Weissmueller
This is not the first time governments have tried to control new tools of mass communication.
Much like the internet, the advent of the printing press provoked panic and backlash among the elite institutions it disrupted.
America’s first multi-page newspaper was shut down after a single edition because it spread rumors about the sex lives of government officials and published what the colonial government described as “uncertain reports,” or what we might today call “fake news.”
For the crime of publishing without a license, the government imprisoned and later ran out of town another early colonial newspaper’s editor: James Franklin, older brother to Benjamin Franklin who went on to run that paper and do a few other notable things.
A few decades earlier, John Milton criticized the British government’s regulation of materials produced by the printing press, writing in 1644 that, “Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopoliz’d and traded in by tickets and statute.” Instead, wrote Milton, better to “Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple.”
Granting government even the slightest control over the free flow of information on the internet under the guise of fighting falsehoods will, ironically, make more difficult the task of discovering truth.
Donor Privacy
Goldwater Institute: Privacy and the Right to Advocate: Remembering NAACP v. Alabama and its First Amendment Legacy on the 60th Anniversary of the Case
By Matt Miller
On the pro-privacy side of the circuit split is the Tenth Circuit… In Coalition for Secular Government v. Williams, the appeals court was asked to determine the constitutionality of a Colorado law requiring disclosure of the identity of anyone who donated $20 or more to an issue committee, meaning a non-profit group that has a “major purpose” of supporting or opposing a ballot question, if that group spent more than $3,500 supporting or opposing a ballot measure.
The court struck down the requirement…
On the anti-privacy side of the circuit split are the Third and Ninth Circuits. In Delaware Strong Families v. Delaware, the Third Circuit upheld a law requiring a non-profit group to disclose its donors after publishing a non-partisan voter guide…
The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. However, Justice Alito noted that he would have granted review, and Justice Thomas went so far as to write a rare dissent from the Court’s denial of review. “In my view,” wrote Thomas, “it is time for the Court to reconsider whether a State’s interest in an informed electorate can ever justify the disclosure of otherwise anonymous donor rolls.” …
Legal challenges to these laws will continue to percolate up through the courts and eventually reach the Supreme Court. When they do, the reasoning of NAACP v. Alabama will be the touchstone for deciding whether the First Amendment protects donor privacy in the modern era.
Congress
Roll Call: House Judiciary Advances Foreign Lobby Overhaul
By Kate Ackley
House Republicans took a significant step Wednesday in an effort to overhaul the nation’s foreign lobbying disclosure regulations amid scandals in the influence sector.
The House Judiciary Committee advanced as amended, 15-6 along party lines, the measure that would give the Justice Department new subpoena-like investigative powers. That new authority sparked controversy among the panel’s Democrats.
Though the measure has two Democratic co-sponsors and most of the panel’s Democrats said they supported the idea of an overhaul, that still wasn’t enough to stop deep partisan divisions from emerging during debate.
Democrats complained that the majority party was moving too quickly…
New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the committee’s top Democrat, said the foreign lobbying bill was not “yet ripe for markup, as it might raise several constitutional and policy questions that should give us some pause before we move forward.” …
The main policy debate at House Judiciary was over the bill’s provision to grant new subpoena-like authority to the Justice Department’s FARA unit.
The Media
Politico: Study: Americans view media negatively, can’t agree on meaning of ‘fake news’
By Jason Schwartz
A new study on the news media in the United States, released on Tuesday by Gallup and the Knight Foundation, finds many familiar if unsettling trends: Americans have a negative view of the media, believe coverage is more biased than ever and are sharply divided in their views along partisan lines.
Those findings reflect continuations of longstanding trends. One finding, though, was unique to the Trump era: Americans are so polarized that they cannot even agree on the definition of “fake news.”
Democrats, the study found, hew more closely to the original definition of the phrase that emerged after the 2016 election, referring to fabricated news stories that are intended to deceive.
Republicans, on the other hand, are more likely to have also adopted the meaning that President Donald Trump has ascribed to the term, which he often tags on stories that he dislikes, regardless of whether or not they are factual.
HuffPost: Jeff Flake Urges GOP To Stand Up To Trump’s Attacks Against The Press
By Igor Bobic
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) warned Republicans that they must stand up to President Donald Trump’s attacks against the press or else risk being complicit in a dangerous slide to authoritarianism.
Flake delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor Wednesday warning that Trump’s repeated attacks on the U.S. media as “fake news” are hurting democracy, which he said depended on a shared set of facts…
Trump last week again suggested he would make it easier for people to sue news organizations and publishers for defamation by taking a “strong look” at the nation’s libel laws. In addition to his attacks against specific news organization and journalists, Trump has labeled the media the “enemy of the people.”
Flake said it would be “a source of great shame in this body, especially for those of us in the president’s party,” if Trump’s “unprecedented” assault on the media went unchallenged.
The States
Northwest Progressive Institute’s Cascadia Advocate: Washington State [Senate] passes DISCLOSE Act to expose dark money in politics – at last!
Washington State’s newly minted Democratic Senate majority notched its first signature legislative win tonight, bringing Andy Billig’s DISCLOSE Act to the floor for a vote and easily passing the legislation with the support of several Republicans…
“The bipartisan Senate vote tonight on the DISCLOSE Act takes us one step closer to shining a light on dark money in Washington state elections,” said Billig (D-6th District: Spokane)…
All twenty-five Democratic Senators voted to pass SSB 5991. They were joined by seven Republicans: Michael Baumgartner (yes, really!), Joe Fain, Brad Hawkins, Mark Miloscia, Maureen Walsh, Judy Warnick, and Hans Zeiger.
Sunshine State News: AG Hopeful Frank White Pushes for Campaign Finance Reform
By Allison Nielsen
Attorney General hopeful and State Rep. Frank White says it’s time to change the state’s public finance system and put Florida taxpayers’ money out of political campaigns and back where it belongs.
H.J.R. 989, sponsored by White, seeks to end a 30-year-old state public financing system by repealing taxpayer money from being used in statewide campaigns.
White’s proposal would ban taxpayer money from being used for campaign purposes like TV ads and mailers…
The measure was unanimously passed by the House Oversight, Transparency & Administration Subcommittee on Tuesday. If approved by the legislature, the repeal would be placed on the 2018 ballot later this year…
White’s proposal now heads to the House Public Integrity and Ethics Committee for approval.
NH Labor News: NH Pushes Legislation To Limit Big Money In Politics
House Bill 1773 would provide voters with four $25 “civic dollars” to donate to candidates for Governor, Executive Council and state Senate who pledge to limit their maximum donation from private donors to $250. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Renny Cushing, also includes other reforms, including stronger requirements to ensure financial transparency of SuperPACs and candidate campaigns, and tougher enforcement of campaign finance laws.
Gotham Gazette: Four Years Later, 2014 State Campaign Finance Pilot All But Forgotten
By Rachel Silberstein
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s ill-fated 2014 public campaign financing experiment, in which candidates for state comptroller were eligible to test-run a pilot program, appears all but forgotten…
While Cuomo, who is sitting on a $30 million warchest, including millions in dollars from LLCs, put provisions for a small-donor public matching program and closure of the LLC loophole in his State of the State policy book again this year, the proposals were only briefly mentioned in his 92-minute address on January 3.
“We should increase trust by closing the LLC loophole and open up the electoral process with public financing, but not our current public financing system that has public financing but private loopholes,” Cuomo said. “I mean a true public financing system in which the exception does not swallow the rule. That’s what we need to do to regain the trust of the citizens in this state and across this nation.”
There’s no indication that Cuomo will prioritize campaign finance reform this year, especially given the difficult budget situation the state is in, with a $4.4 billion deficit to close and a new federal tax code to react to. While the Democratically-led Assembly appears to continue to support campaign finance reform, it is not evident as a top priority in the lower house.
Wisconsin State Journal: As Senate vote nears, state Ethics chief blasts former Government Accountability Board as partisan, inconsistent
By Mark Sommerhauser and Matthew DeFour
As a vote on his fate draws near, state Ethics Administrator Brian Bell is ripping the former state ethics agency, the Government Accountability Board, saying he left it in 2015 because it enforced the law unevenly and one of its top attorneys, Democrat Shane Falk, “displayed open partisanship.”
In a memo released to lawmakers Wednesday, Bell gave his sharpest public denunciation yet of the now-defunct accountability board. It comes as the state Senate is poised to hold pivotal votes Tuesday on the confirmations of Bell and the state Elections Administrator, Mike Haas.
Oregonian: Campaign limits would put Oregon’s failing government back on track: Guest opinion
By Sal Peralta
Oregon is one of only five states with no limits on campaign contributions. That’s why our state policies, especially those related to the environment, education and taxes, reflect the interests of the powerful rather than the general public…
As a third party that favors pragmatism, we recognize that our ability to change the political system is limited. Actual change will require hard work, smart reforms and a few big leaps of faith.
It will require a leap of faith by civic-minded Oregonians to run for public office on platforms that actually address these issues and to get elected through the grassroots support of ordinary citizens rather than the special interests that currently dominate our political process.
It will also take a leap of faith by voters. The only real political currency many of us have is our vote. There are two things candidates need. Funding and votes. In the end it’s really about your vote.
Chicago Sun-Times: How do you run for governor in Illinois if you are not a billionaire?
By Editorial Board
On Wednesday, when the six candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor met with the Sun-Times Editorial Board, they generally agreed on the need for campaign finance reform. Two of the candidates – Chris Kennedy and state Sen. Daniel Biss – are on record as supporting the turbocharging of small campaign donations by matching them with a larger amount of public financing, typically six public dollars for every dollar a small donor gives…
Proposals for matching public dollars have been introduced at various levels of government, but gone nowhere. A bill passed the state Senate in the last session but died in the House. A Cook County Board bill is sitting in committee, as is one before the City Council. Legislation in Congress has stalled in both chambers because of Republican opposition.
Supporters are planning a renewed push this year in the state House, and a similar effort is planned for candidates seeking office in Evanston.
Some form of matching dollars for small donations exists in many large cities. The measure proposed in Chicago would require candidates to agree not to accept donations of more than $500. Candidates also would be required to collect $17,500 from small donors in their ward before they could qualify for donation matching. Candidates accepting small donor matching also would agree to a cap on total contributions.
