We’re Hiring!
Senior Attorney – Institute for Free Speech – Washington, DC or Virtual Office
The Institute for Free Speech is hiring a Senior Attorney with a minimum of seven years of experience.
This is a rare opportunity to work with a growing team to litigate a long-term legal strategy directed toward the protection of Constitutional rights. We challenge laws, practices, and policies that infringe upon First Amendment freedoms, such as speech codes that censor parents at school board meetings, laws restricting people’s ability to give and receive campaign contributions, and any intrusion into people’s private political associations. You would work to hold censors accountable; and to secure legal precedents clearing away a thicket of laws, regulations, and practices that suppress speech about government and candidates for political office, threaten citizens’ privacy if they speak or join groups, and impose heavy burdens on political activity.
[You can learn more about this role and apply for the position here.]
The Courts
Springfield News-Leader: Former Lake Ozark lawmaker’s attempt to overturn Missouri’s revolving door ban rejected by judge
By Galen Bacharier
A federal judge ruled last week that Missouri’s two-year ban on lawmakers becoming lobbyists after their time in office would not be overturned, rejecting an argument by a former legislator that the law violated his freedom of speech.
Texas Tribune: Texas law barring state contractors from boycotting Israel violates firm’s free speech, federal judge rules
By Allyson Waller
Texas can’t forbid an engineering firm from boycotting Israel as part of its contract with Houston City Hall, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen on Friday stopped short of fully blocking a state law that prohibits government agencies from doing business with certain companies that boycott Israel. But his ruling said the free speech rights of A & R Engineering and Testing Inc. would be violated if its contract with the city included a clause saying the company will refrain from such a boycott. Hanen also said that Texas could not enforce its law against the company or the city.
Free Expression
Washington Post: Please, Georgetown. Don’t fire an academic over tweets.
By Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein
Georgetown University is considering firing an academic over his tweets. If it does so, it will harm not only its own reputation but also the credibility of higher education in general…
In a similar case, as journalist Bari Weiss pointed out, Georgetown rightly defended the rights of another professor, Carol Christine Fair, who tweeted in 2018 that “entitled white men” who defended then-Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh “deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps.” Fair added the suggestion that “we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine.” Her tweets were no less offensive than Shapiro’s; they were just from the other political direction. To her credit, Fair has joined a letter supporting Shapiro.
PACs
Wall Street Journal: Comcast, Goldman Sachs Resume PAC Giving to Republican Election Objectors
By Chad Day
Political action committees for Comcast Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have resumed giving money to one or more of the 147 Republican lawmakers who voted to object to the certification of President Biden’s election after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot by supporters of former GOP President Donald Trump, new filings show…
The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that more than a dozen other corporate and industry PACs that paused all political giving or announced reviews had already restarted donations, including to objectors, earlier this year. In previous statements to the Journal, several of the companies said the PAC donations, which are funded by employee contributions, were necessary to help them accomplish their business goals.
The States
Tucson.com: Arizona high court restricts right to sue for libel if dragged into political disputes
By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services
The Arizona Supreme Court has restricted the right of private individuals dragged into, and defamed, in political disputes to sue.
In a 4-3 ruling Tuesday that sets precedents, the majority of justices cited First Amendment concerns about free speech.
The ruling acknowledged that current state Sen. Wendy Rogers made statements during her 2018 congressional campaign about Steve Smith, her Republican primary foe, that also implicated the modeling firm for which he worked, the Young Agency. Neither the agency nor its owner Pamela Young played a role in the campaign, the majority acknowledged.
But Justice Clint Bolick, writing for the majority, pointed out that Young was not named in the radio commercial at issue, which called Smith “a slimy character whose modeling agency specializes in underage girls and advertises on websites linked to sex trafficking.’’
He said politicians have wider latitude than individuals about what they can say without committing slander or libel. That leaves Young without a legal remedy, Bolick said.
WRIC: Virginia Senate committee kills bill to ban Dominion Energy’s political spending
By Dean Mirshahi
A bipartisan effort to ban public utilities like Dominion Energy from making political donations was voted down in a Virginia Senate committee controlled by Democrats.
Techdirt: Governor Inslee Wants To Jail Politicians Who Lie? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
By Mike Masnick
I know that people who identify tribally as Democrats or Republicans often like to accuse the other team of being especially censorial, but the unfortunate fact is that elected officials in both parties seem equally interested in using the power of the state to take away 1st Amendment rights…
For every Republican bill in Congress demanding censorship of some types of content, you have Democrats seeking to censor other kinds of content. You can argue that the reasons behind one side’s wish to censor is more pure than the other side’s, but that’s not how the 1st Amendment works — and anyone who doesn’t realize how any of these laws would be easily (and widely) abused by the other side has not paid any attention to the history of how speech suppressive laws work.
Entering into this fray, we have Washington state Governor Jay Inslee, who, at the beginning of the year, announced plans for a law to criminalize “false speech” about elections.
