In the News
USA Today: Russia isn’t out to decide our elections, they want to divide us and damage our country
By Eric Wang
Like an Internet meme promoting a narrative, many now say Russia’s online propaganda in America was focused on interfering with the 2016 elections. Federal and state lawmakers introduced bills, some of which became law, on this predicate. But two reports recently released by the Senate Intelligence Committee suggest this premise is mistaken.
As the 116th Congress and new state legislative sessions convene in 2019, lawmakers and their staff should carefully study these reports before they act. The reports reveal how the Russian efforts go far beyond election interference. The real goal is outright sabotage by tearing apart America’s social fabric…
Most of the legislative response has focused on amending campaign finance laws. The measures propose new reporting, disclaimer and record-keeping requirements for paid online ads that legislators deem to have some tangential relationship with elections.
These far-reaching bills and laws are an extremely poor fit for the Russian threat. They unjustifiably burden Americans’ core First Amendment speech rights. Social media platforms have stopped selling political ads in Maryland and Washington state in response to these laws. The laws’ infirmities make them susceptible to constitutional challenges such as the one brought by several media outlets against the Maryland law, which is pending in a federal court.
The reports released by the Senate Intelligence Committee do more to explain the Russian threat than to suggest legislative solutions. Even so, lawmakers cannot address the problem without first correctly identifying it. So far, legislators have failed at even this initial step. Instead, they have rushed to pass laws burdening Americans’ free-speech rights.
New from the Institute for Free Speech
Newspapers Win Court Ruling on Maryland Law Regulating Online Ads
The Institute for Free Speech released the following statement praising today’s ruling by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, Southern Division, in The Washington Post et al v. McManus.
“The court’s ruling confirms that the First Amendment protects online speech. We’re pleased the court barred Maryland from enforcing its misguided law against these online publishers,” said Institute for Free Speech President David Keating. “Other states, and Congress, should take note. The courts will strike down laws that burden our free speech and press rights while doing little to prevent foreign interference.”
The court’s ruling is available here.
The Courts
Washington Post: Judge bars enforcement of online political ad law on media
By Brian Witte, AP
Parts of a Maryland law aimed at stopping foreign interference in local elections on social media platforms such as Facebook appears to encroach on the First Amendment, a federal judge has ruled.
The law requires certain media websites to self-publish information about the political ads they run online and keep records of them for state inspection. U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm granted a preliminary injunction Thursday to prevent the state from enforcing those provisions against media until the case is resolved.
“The 2016 election exposed alarming new vulnerabilities in this country’s democratic process,” Grimm wrote. “While there is no denying that states have a strong interest in countering newly emerging threats to their elections, the approaches they choose to take must not encroach on First Amendment freedoms that are the hallmark of our nation. Maryland’s statue appears to overstep these bounds.”
The Washington Post and other media outlets with an online presence in Maryland filed a federal lawsuit last year to block portions of the law from being enforced against online publishers.
Grimm’s order notes that the Maryland statute is among several states’ responses to revelations that Russia exploited social media in an effort to sway public opinion ahead of the 2016 presidential election. New York and Washington also updated election transparency in a similar fashion…
“The State has not persuaded me that the Act’s publication and state inspection requirements are substantially related to its aims,” Grimm wrote. “The method it has chosen to remedy an admittedly important state interest is ill suited to the task and threatens in the process to impose substantial burdens on Plaintiffs’ First Amendment-protected rights of free speech and a free press.”
Seattle Times: Immigration protest organizers sue SeaTac after city bills them $37,000 for event security
By Heidi Groover
Organizers of a protest against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies that drew around 10,000 people to the SeaTac Federal Detention Center last summer say that city is now trying to make them pay $37,000 for crowd control and other costs from the event – a charge they say threatens to chill free speech.
The coalition of groups that organized the rally, Families Belong Together – Washington, is suing the city of SeaTac in U.S. District Court, alleging the city’s policy violates the First Amendment.
“What they did sending an invoice for $37,000 to a small group of grassroots organizations, they’re sending us a message,” said Palmira Figueroa, one of the event organizers. “The message is, ‘Don’t come here. Don’t do your rallies here.'”…
The complaint asks a judge to stop SeaTac from charging for public-safety services at speech and assembly events like protests in city spaces and to block the city from taking any collection action for the $37,000…
One of the group’s members, Mohammed Kilani, applied for a city permit for the event on June 28 and the city granted it June 29. “At no time in the permitting process did anyone inform Mr. Kilani that he might be responsible for tens of thousands of dollars in police costs to ensure the safety of those seeking to engage in constitutionally protected speech,” the complaint said…
For an event where no one was arrested and organizers cleaned up afterward, the charges came as a surprise “especially [to] people on our team that have been organizers for many years,” Figueroa said. “This was a first for all of us.”
Even if organizers had been warned about the costs, that could have deterred them from holding the event, therefore restricting their free-speech rights, the complaint argues.
Congress
Center for Responsive Politics: House Democrats propose major campaign finance reforms in first bill of session
By Karl Evers-Hillstrom
House Democrats on Friday officially unveiled the For the People Act…
The bill would require politically-active “dark money” 501(c)(4) nonprofits to disclose donors that contribute more than $10,000 and task the IRS with creating new rules for nonprofit political spending. It would prohibit the use of shell companies to funnel money to campaigns and super PACs and ban campaign contributions and independent expenditures from corporations with significant foreign ownership.
In an extraordinary passage, the bill declares that the Constitution should be amended to overturn both the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that helped unleash unprecedented amounts of outside spending and the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision that prohibited Congress from setting election spending limits. A separate, bipartisan constitutional amendment released Friday formally calls for a repeal of the two decisions.
The bill attempts to crack down on digital ad spending, which has so far been almost entirely unregulated, by creating a public database that discloses all political digital ad purchases totaling more than $500 and by preventing foreign individuals from purchasing digital political ads.
As part of the push to reduce the political influence of wealthy donors, the bill would provide a government-funded six-to-one match on contributions under $200 given to congressional and presidential candidates.
The bill proposes several changes to the FEC, including reducing its number of members from six to five to prevent partisan deadlock and attempts to define “coordination” between super PACs and candidates.
HuffPost: House Democrats Introduce Their Sweeping New Reform Bill
By Paul Blumenthal
Here is what is in the Democrats’ big reform bill: (Read the full text here.) …
The bill creates a public financing system for House elections that provides $6 in public funds for every $1 in funds raised from donations up to $200. Participants in this voluntary public financing system would also be prevented from raising money from large donors. The bill also creates a small-donor matching system for presidential elections. A separate bill covering Senate elections will be introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.)…
The bill also includes the Disclose Act, which mandates that nonprofits and other groups not currently bound by law to reveal donor information must disclose those sources when they contribute to election campaigns. The package’s Honest Ads Act requires the disclosure of digital political ads on tech platforms…
Previously enacted bans on the Securities and Exchange Commission, the executive branch and the Internal Revenue Service from requiring donor disclosure from corporations, nonprofits and government contractors would be repealed…
The bill also features new lobbyist and revolving door reforms to reduce government corruption. Lobbyist registration is extended to anyone “counseling in support of lobbying contacts.”
Fox News: Nancy Pelosi takes the gavel in the House and what’s her first target? Free speech
By David Bossie
As the president of Citizens United, I know that every two years around this time the left ramps up its wrongheaded quest to gut the First Amendment and attack the landmark “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision that protects robust free speech rights for all of the American people. And this year is no exception, as House Democrats prepare to unveil H.R. 1 today.
A recent column in The New York Times entitled “After Citizens United, a Vicious Cycle of Corruption,” opens by stating, “In the eight years since it was decided, Citizens United has unleashed a wave of campaign spending that by any reasonable standard is extraordinarily corrupt.” An intriguing opening perhaps, but the entire opinion piece contains no evidence of corruption whatsoever. Liberals just can’t come to grips with the fact that spending a lot of money to participate in the political process doesn’t equal corruption…
The bill consists of speech-stifling regulations under the guise of campaign finance reform…
Candidates and Campaigns
Wall Street Journal: Elizabeth Warren’s Money Game
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Political observers spent this week wondering why the Massachusetts senator rushed to become the first major Democrat to announce for 2020. She made her strategy clear in a Wednesday-night interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “This is going to be the fish-or-cut-bait year for the Democrats,” said Ms. Warren, in what was clearly a well-rehearsed declaration. “This is a moment for all of the Democratic nominees . . . to say: In a Democratic primary, we are going to link arms, and we’re going to say ‘grass-roots funding.’ No to the billionaires. No to the billionaires-whether they are self-funding, or whether they are funding PACs. We are the Democratic Party, and that’s the party of the people.”
This may sound laudable, and in keeping with Ms. Warren’s antipathy for plutocrats. It’s also in line with the progressive animus toward “big money,” intensified in 2016 by the Bernie Sanders campaign. All of which masks how useful this approach is to Ms. Warren as she tries to ward off or financially destroy her competition. Not for the first time, she is positioning herself as a campaign-finance purist, even as she attempts to fix the money rules to her advantage.
The immediate goal of planting this new campaign-finance yardstick is to put her competitors in a bind and potentially even dissuade some from running. Her jab at “self-funding” was a clear shot at billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, both of whom are visiting primary states. Ms. Warren wants them to know that she will mobilize her progressive base to oppose them on principle.
But it was equally a warning to any well-connected contenders that she will hold them to a no-super-PAC standard.
Fundraising
New York Times: Republicans Seek to Boost Small Donations, but a Fragmented System Stymies Them
By Stephanie Saul and Rachel Shorey
Buoyed by ActBlue, more than 100 Democratic candidates outraised their Republican counterparts in hotly contested congressional races.
That kind of uniformity and heft in small-dollar donations – typically defined as $200 or less – was missing on the Republican side, a costly shortcoming that the party is now confronting after losing 40 seats, and control of the House, to Democrats…
[I]ndividual Democratic candidates for House and Senate seats outraised their Republican counterparts overall, $1.4 billion to $880 million and a significant portion of the difference can be attributed to small donations whose impact has increased significantly.
Overall, Democratic candidates in the general election collected nearly $296 million in small donations, more than three times the $85 million collected by Republicans. As Democrats have increasingly excelled in that area, aided by ActBlue, Republicans have come to realize that those little donations, repeated over and over again, add up to big numbers.
“We simply can’t go to the next election cycle as underfunded as we were compared to the Democratic candidates in the target races,” Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist, said in an interview. “We’ve got to figure out a way to even out that funding situation.”
The States
Mackinac Center for Public Policy: Gov. Snyder Punts on Play to Protect Michiganders’ Constitutional Liberties
By David Guenthner
Others may comment about what the volume of vetoes says about Gov. Snyder’s governing philosophy, internal management or engagement with the legislative process. But his veto of Senate Bill 1176, authored by Sen. Mike Shirkey, merits specific attention for the consequences it could soon have on Michiganders’ freedoms of speech and voluntary association.
Senate Bill 1176 would have codified existing practice and protections for Michiganders who want to express and voluntarily associate with others who share their beliefs. It said that neither state nor local government agencies were allowed to demand or release the personal information of the supporters of nonprofit organizations. Much of this information has long been held to be confidential tax information at the federal level. SB 1176 would have guaranteed that disclosures required under the Michigan campaign finance and lobbying acts, as well as the listing of a nonprofit’s board members on Michigan corporate filings, would continue…
In Gov. Snyder’s veto letter, he concedes that “other state attorneys general have probed for information relative to nonprofit donors” but “that has not been the case in Michigan.” This is shortsighted: Just because it hasn’t happened here yet doesn’t mean it won’t ever. And the fact that other states and cities are playing loose with these constitutional protections is all the more reason for Michigan to be proactive, pass SB 1176 and protect Michiganders’ rights.
Keloland News: New Campaign Finance Reform Law In South Dakota
By Anna Peters
Beginning this week there is a new law limiting home much money committees can donate to a political campaign.
Under the new rules, if the same person starts or runs more than one committee, those groups will share a single contribution limit.
South Dakota’s Government Accountability Task Force is behind the new law.
Lawmakers formed the group in 2017, after overturning Initiated Measure 22. You may remember, just a couple months earlier voters had passed the campaign finance rules into law.
NJ Advance Media: Pro-Murphy group refuses to disclose donors. Lawmakers slam governor and group for flip-flop.
By Matt Arco
The group, New Direction New Jersey, is a 501(c)4 used to promote the Democratic governor’s legislative agenda.
It made headlines last year by rattling Democratic lawmakers in airing TV commercials across the state that promoted Murphy as he was in tense state budget negotiations with members of his own party who control the Legislature…
[W]hen the ads ran, New Jersey’s top state lawmaker, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, was outraged by the group’s attempt to pressure lawmakers to adopt Murphy’s budget proposal and demanded the group disclose its donors.
New Direction New Jersey pledged to disclose who donated to the group by the end of 2018.
The group, however, reversed its decision, citing “increased attacks from powerful special interests seeking to preserve the status quo in recent months,” New Direction New Jersey spokesman Philip Swibinski said in a statement.
“Due to the toxic political environment these sustained attacks have fostered, the organization has decided not to exceed its legally mandated disclosure requirements this year,” Swibinski added.
But Murphy on Friday afternoon urged the group to be transparent.
“I think they should disclose their donors, as should all similar groups,” the governor said in a statement. “But the fact that we’re discussing what any one group should or shouldn’t do above and beyond the law, rather than all groups, is indicative of the problem. We must strengthen our disclosure laws.”
Virginia Mercury: Looking Ahead: Bills filed affecting elections and campaign finance
By Mechelle Hankerson
Democrats and Republicans have also made early moves to address some of Virginia’s loose campaign finance rules.
Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax, and Cole have both filed bills that would impose a civil penalty on candidates who use campaign funds for personal use.
In both cases, the State Board of Elections would decide if campaign money was improperly used and any registered voter or donor could lodge a complaint against a politician…
Other Democrats are interested in giving statewide and local races more scrutiny when it comes to campaign finance.
Del. Kaye Kory, D-Fairfax, wants the Board of Elections to randomly audit campaign finance reports of candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the General Assembly…
Candidates for local offices – like town or city councils or boards of supervisors – could also be subject to more strict campaign finance laws if a bill from Del. Chris Hurst, D-Blacksburg, passes.
Right now, towns with fewer than 25,000 people aren’t subject to the Campaign Finance Disclosure Act of 2006, which lays out the rules for establishing and operating campaign committees, among other rules. Towns can decide to follow the law by passing a local ordinance for it.
Hurst’s legislation would require any candidate who collects or spends more than $25,000 in a campaign to be subject to the act, regardless of whether a locality has passed an ordinance.
