In the News
Election Law Blog: Federal judge finds Wyoming’s campaign disclosure and disclaimer requirements violate First Amendment
By Derek Muller
Order granting in part motion for summary judgment by a Wyoming federal district court in Wyoming Gun Owners v. Buchanon, a case building on Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta (and as applied to the plaintiffs in this case):
Cowboy State Daily: Wyoming Gun Owners’ Aaron Dorr Hails Federal Court Ruling
By Jim Angell
An official with a Second Amendment advocacy group is hailing a judge’s decision in the group’s favor in its lawsuit against the Wyoming secretary of state.
Aaron Dorr, policy advisor for Wyoming Gun Owners, said he was pleased that a federal court ruled as unconstitutional a state law that would have made the group disclose its donors.
”With help from the Institute for Free Speech we won … securing a victory for the First Amendment and the Second Amendment at the same time,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Supreme Court
SCOTUSblog: College board’s censure of one of its members didn’t violate First Amendment, justices rule
By Amy Howe
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a community college board did not violate the First Amendment when it censured one of its trustees. The unanimous ruling was the latest episode in a long-running drama that pitted the Houston Community College System against David Wilson, a trustee and outspoken critic of the board.
The Courts
The Hill: Trump sues Hillary Clinton, DNC over Russian collusion allegations
By Harper Neidig
Former President Trump on Thursday filed a sprawling civil lawsuit against 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and more than a dozen others alleging a vast conspiracy to undermine his 2016 presidential campaign and administration with accusations of Russian collusion.
“Acting in concert, the Defendants maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty,” a 108-page complaint filed Thursday said.
“The actions taken in furtherance of their scheme — falsifying evidence, deceiving law enforcement, and exploiting access to highly-sensitive data sources — are so outrageous, subversive and incendiary that even the events of Watergate pale in comparison.”
Politico: ‘FIGHT BACK’: Jan. 6 panel’s court battle with RNC heats up over fundraising emails
By Kyle Cheney
In a brief filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., late Wednesday, the Jan. 6 committee rejected the RNC’s claim that the panel’s bid for documents related to those post-election emails amounted to a Democratic effort to obtain the opposing party’s sensitive strategy details. Rather, the select panel says, it’s singularly focused on the extent to which the RNC stoked, and profited from, Trump’s election disinformation — plus any nexus their messaging had to the violence that followed.
“This information may assist the Select Committee in assessing the types and quantities of mass email campaigns to target in any potential legislation to combat dangerous political disinformation,” the select committee wrote in a 57-page brief, responding to an RNC lawsuit filed earlier this month.
Congress
NBC News: Republicans rail against liberal ‘dark money,’ oppose laws to disclose donors
By Sahil Kapur
Yet the No. 2 Republican senator said there isn’t much of an appetite in the caucus for requiring donor disclosures, leaving [the DISCLOSE Act] without much of a path to winning the necessary 60 votes.
“I’ve never been a big fan of this kind of unlimited, undisclosed campaign money. But I’m kind of an outlier in my conference,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., told NBC News.
Thune said “there is an argument to be made on” requiring disclosures, noting that campaigns are limited in their ability to raise money and “at such a disadvantage relative to outside groups, because they can raise money in unlimited amounts.” …
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a co-sponsor of the legislation, said it will receive a vote in the full chamber.
“We would like to have a vote on the DISCLOSE Act and will have a vote on the DISCLOSE Act on the Senate floor,” he told reporters Tuesday. “The idea that Republicans are now claiming that they’re against dark money, even though they have blocked every attempt at legislation to get rid of dark money, says something.”
Roll Call: Democrats seek SEC action on foreign influence in elections
By Kate Ackley
The Securities and Exchange Commission should adopt regulations to identify foreign-owned companies that spend corporate funds to influence elections, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin and 15 other House Democrats say in a letter they plan to send Thursday.
The letter, shared first with CQ Roll Call, cites Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to underscore the urgent need for the action…
Raskin and his colleagues argue that the Citizens United decision, which paved the way for corporations to be able to give unlimited amounts from their treasuries to super PACs, “created a massive foreign money loophole in our country’s campaign finance system. The problem is that domestically registered corporations can be taken over, appreciably bought-up, controlled, or influenced by foreign governments, foreign corporations, or foreign nationals,” the letter said.
Free Expression
Washington Post: Free speech gets tossed at Yale Law School
By Marc A. Thiessen
Waggoner wasn’t just delivering a speech. She was participating in a discussion on civil liberties with a representative of a left-wing group, the American Humanist Association. If you want to clerk for a federal judge, listening respectfully as two sides discuss an issue is your job. If you can’t do that, you have no business serving in a judge’s chambers. The job of a federal judge is to uphold the Constitution. If these students show so little respect for the First Amendment in law school, they probably won’t respect it while drafting opinions for a federal judge either.
Worse still, the fact that the protesters actually believed their right to free speech was being suppressed is Orwellian. Shutting down free speech is not free speech. When you shout someone down, you’re not participating in argument — you are trying to prevent the argument from taking place.
The Atlantic: The Threat to Free Speech, Beyond ‘Cancel Culture’
By Conor Friedersdorf
What is “cancellation,” exactly? I try to avoid that term in favor of more particular claims, like these: 1) Deliberative democracy depends on the willingness of citizens to air earnestly held positions, including wrongheaded positions, on matters that society is still working through. 2) Fulfilling attendant civic obligations sometimes requires the courage to air ideas publicly despite the possibility that those ideas will be criticized or even ridiculed. 3) Alas, many Americans self-censor on issues that society is still working through not because they are unwilling to have their ideas tested by fire, but because they so frequently see others personally and viciously attacked, arbitrarily and capriciously punished, or unjustly shamed or shunned by digital mobs who reject liberal speech norms. When others complain about cancel culture, those various speech-chilling treatments of others is often what I understand them to mean, granting that the term is underdefined, inconsistently applied, and sometimes abused.
The Media
Wall Street Journal: Why the Biden Laptop Matters Now
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
I’ve been wondering when our media, at least those with a long-term hope of authority, would begin clawing back from their Russia collusion disgrace. The answer turns out to be: “When Vladimir Putin starts World War III in Ukraine.”
Internet Speech Regulation
RealClearMarkets: Conservatives Will Rue the Day They ‘Common Carrier’ Social Media
By Norm Singleton
One problem with these proposals is it would violate these companies’ First Amendment right to not be forced to provide a platform for speech they, or the majority of their platform’s users, find objectionable. This is not a theoretical concern, rather a requirement forcing companies to allow all views to be heard. This would include racists, sexists, and those wishing to post images of extreme violence and even pornography on their platforms. This would likely lead to legislators, judges, and bureaucrats deciding what speech is acceptable for Internet companies to block from their platforms. Given how many bureaucrats view all conservative speech as “hate” speech; there would thus likely be more silencing of conservatives online.
PACs
Intercept: Corporate PACs Save Face By Claiming Worker Power
By Rachel M. Cohen
By the start of 2021, one-fifth of Democratic lawmakers were refusing corporate PAC money.
So the trade association that lobbies to promote corporate PACs sought a marketing fix.
“Candidates can run the kind of campaign they want, but what happens when they reject contributions from employee-funded #PACs?” asked the group, called the National Association of Business Political Action Committees, in a 2020 tweet. “It sends the message to American workers that their voices aren’t valid simply b/c of the way they choose to give.” In another blast, the NABPAC said pledges against corporate PACs deny “millions of #AmericanWorkers their voice.” …
Under public scrutiny, corporations have been readily embracing the NABPAC’s new language. Mainstream media outlets, too, have started to adopt the framing, as have some Democratic lawmakers. For those who once pledged to reject corporate PAC donations and have since changed their minds, the spin might help justify the reversal…
“Business PACs are set up to benefit the corporation and its political goals,” said Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program. “I don’t think it’s the workers’ voices who are being silenced if a candidate doesn’t raise money from corporate PACs, nor do I really think corporations are being silenced, given how many other routes they have [to contribute].”
The States
Oregon Capital Chronicle: Campaign finance reform advocates ask Oregon Supreme Court for a new hearing
By Julia Shumway
A coalition of good government groups is asking the Oregon Supreme Court to reconsider a decision that would keep voters from deciding in November whether the state should limit money in politics…
In a 42-page appeal filed shortly before midnight Wednesday, the petitioners laid out several arguments why the court should take their case.
