Free Speech
Pacific Legal Foundation: Free speech equals inclusivity
By Ethan W. Blevins
The New York Times published an article titled “What College Students Really Think About Free Speech,” which analyzed survey data about whether students considered inclusivity or free speech as more important. The results were mixed as students struggled to “balance” these values. But the survey itself suffers from a fundamental flaw: it assumes, wrongly, that free speech and inclusivity are conflicting values. But free speech and true inclusivity are not at odds; in fact, they’re the same thing.
Those who favor stifling certain speech on campus sometimes lean on a bogus premise-that inclusivity requires the school to erect barricades to certain speech. But a careful thinker should see the immediate contradiction in that premise. Inclusivity means allowing diversity of thought. And-vitally-that must include thoughts that many, even most, dislike. Otherwise, the calls for tolerance sound much more like the opposite-a desire to punish and exclude opposing views.
So the survey, by pitting inclusivity against free speech, poses a false dilemma. No wonder students have trouble figuring out how to “balance” these values. Too many of their thought leaders are presenting them with an impossible scenario.
Free speech is inclusivity in its most fundamental state. It is the embodiment of diversity-your ideas, your unique forms of self-expression, are welcome here.
National Review: A New Campus Survey Reveals Just How Students Are ‘Unlearning Liberty’
By David French
Six years ago, my good friend Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, coined the perfect phrase to describe the state of free speech in American education: “unlearning liberty.” Our educational system is at cross-purposes with the Bill of Rights, teaching students to believe that unalienable rights such as free speech and due process are a problem, especially when they conflict with the demands of social justice or political expediency.
It’s not that students are taught to despise free speech – after all, students love their own right to speak. It’s that students believe free speech should be subordinate to other, higher values. With depressing regularity now, surveys of college students reveal a pattern: There’s immense support for free speech in the abstract, but that support erodes significantly when the questions get specific…
Our students “unlearn liberty” in part because they’ve been presented with a false choice. The true conflict isn’t between speech and diversity, it’s between speech and the unaccountable power that political and cultural leaders so consistently crave.
Event
National Association of Business Political Action Committees: Regulating PACs and Political Engagement: A Briefing on State and Federal Trends
As America hurtles toward the 2018 elections, major questions continue to emerge about the regulation of political speech through social media and the Internet, whether patchwork state regulations will continue to complicate effective political engagement, and what Congress, the Federal Election Commission and other agencies might propose to address concerns about foreign threats to election integrity. Join three of the nation’s most respected election law experts as they discuss these issues and more.
Speakers:
NABPAC Legal Hotline Counsel Jan Baran – Wiley Rein, LLP
Former FEC Commissioner Lee Goodman – Wiley Rein, LLP
David Keating – Institute for Free Speech
Date: Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Time: 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Location: Wiley Rein Conference Center
Please note: Space is limited.
FEC
Washington Post: Despite pledge to ‘drain the swamp,’ Trump has shown little interest in beefing up the Federal Election Commission
By Michelle Ye Hee Lee
So far, Trump has nominated just one new commissioner to fill the two open spots on the panel. He has the opportunity to name an entirely new slate. The remaining four commissioners are serving on expired terms, two of which ended as long as a decade ago.
If one more leaves without being replaced, the FEC will lack a quorum and be effectively paralyzed…
Last year, Trump nominated conservative Texas lawyer James E. “Trey” Trainor III to the panel, but the Senate has not scheduled a confirmation hearing. It’s unclear when more nominations will be made.
Per tradition, the president defers to the opposition party’s leader in the Senate to make recommendations for nominees from his party. Advocates say both Trump and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) could be taking a more active role if they wanted to move the process along…
Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said McConnell “is looking forward to confirming FEC commissioners who will protect the First Amendment in the important arena of political speech.”
It may take the resignation of one more commissioner and loss of quorum to prompt urgency, said Lawrence Norton, a Republican and former FEC general counsel.
Internet Speech Regulation
Washington Times: Social media’s Trojan regulators
By Peter Roff
Hillary Clinton still can’t believe she lost the election and is using her social media presence to call out those whom she feels were responsible for her loss. “We should all care about how social media platforms play a part in our democratic process. Because unless it’s addressed it will happen again.
“The midterms are in 8 months. We owe it to our democracy to get this right, and fast,” she posted in February…
These attacks on the technology, and that includes the allegations Russian propaganda tipped the election to Mr. Trump, is all about creating an environment in which the American people believe regulation of content on the Internet is vital to the security of American democracy…
The fact that the left is suddenly wary of the influence of Silicon Valley on the nation’s political life and its children should not be read as an indication Democrats and Republicans are finding common ground to do good. A bad idea is still a bad idea even if it has bipartisan support. Republican leaders need to remain true to their anti-regulatory instincts.
Disclosure
Gloucester Times: Wanted – Civic courage
By Edwin Bender
In addition to promoting accountability of our elected officials, transparency and disclosure can actually enhance First Amendment rights. With information about who is supporting or opposing campaigns, members of the public can more completely inform their speech in the discourse of debates. Additionally, transparency allows the public to more effectively assemble by making political relationships more clear. Transparency is necessary for citizens to make informed choices about which candidates they would like to align with. Another example is the work by advocacy organizations to use relationship maps or power maps (which require good information to be properly built) to effectively assemble and coordinate efforts with other members of the public and to speak effectively to our policymakers.
The strongest reason to support disclosure, though, is its signaling effect. It signals a political environment where accountability is expected and information for those debates is freely available. It signals that candidates are proud of who is lining up behind them to support their views and policy ideas. And it signals that donors believe they are making a meaningful statement about what’s right with the candidate they back.
The States
Washington Post: D.C. mayor, reversing course, signs law creating publicly financed campaigns
By Peter Jamison
Bowser announced that she was throwing her support behind the Fair Elections Act, which was approved unanimously by the D.C. Council in February. The law, which will first affect elections in 2020, will steer millions annually toward the campaigns of local candidates and is aimed at reducing their reliance on deep-pocketed donors.
Bowser had previously threatened not to fund the legislation, saying the money would be better spent on city services than on political campaigns…
The program will cost $3.8 million in 2020, the first year in which publicly financed elections would take place, increasing to $7.9 million in 2021…
Under Washington’s voluntary program, candidates who accept public financing must agree to smaller contribution limits for their donors. In exchange, they receive matching funds at a rate of $5 for every $1 raised from a District resident.
Depending on the office, candidates must also raise a threshold sum of money from a certain number of contributors to qualify for the program…
A qualifying mayoral candidate would also receive a $160,000 base grant.
Phoenix New Times: Tempe Looks to Ban Dark Money Today; Legislature Looks to Un-Ban It
By Antonia Noori Farzan
Proposition 403, the Tempe ballot measure, would require groups spending more than $1,000 in local elections to disclose the names of their donors…
Phoenix is also considering introducing a similar measure, which would likely go on the ballot this fall.
Whether either city would actually be able to enforce those laws is an open question. Last month, the Arizona House of Representatives passed House Bill 2153, which would block local governments from enacting legislation that requires nonprofits to disclose the source of their funding. In other words, exactly what Tempe (and now Phoenix) is trying to do.
The bill was introduced by Vince Leach, a Republican from Tucson, and is backed by the Goldwater Institute, which has argued that maintaining donor privacy is essential for protecting free speech. Supporters argue that publicizing the identity of donors could have a chilling effect, and result in threats and intimidation.
Casper Star-Tribune: An effort to crackdown on ‘dark money’ in Wyoming quietly died at the Legislature. Nobody is quite sure why.
By Arno Rosenfeld
After a 2016 campaign cycle in Wyoming during which accusations of “dark money” spending and campaign finance law violations were slung by both Republicans and Democrats, the Legislature sought to clarify and strengthen the rules.
This was to be done largely through two bills, House Bill 2 and House Bill 67. The first was meant to improve the ability of law enforcement and local government to enforce the existing laws while the second was meant to clarify those laws. The first measure passed and has been signed into law by Gov. Matt Mead, while House Bill 67 died a quiet – and critics say alarming – death, falling victim to one of the Legislature’s many cut-off deadlines…
The measure would have tightened definitions for political spending to include “electioneering communications,” messages that don’t explicitly call for voters to act in a certain manner but nonetheless seek to influence an election by, for example, stating that “Joe Smith hates public lands” or “Sally Johnson supports the Second Amendment.”
Portland Mercury: City Commissioners Now Directly Control Portland’s Election Finance System
By Dirk VanderHart
The city’s campaign finance program is facing something of a housing crisis.
While the City Auditor’s Office oversees local elections, it has refused to take in Portland’s new system for funneling public money to candidates for city office. Multnomah County elections officials have declined as well.
And now, in a situation that’s raising questions about chaos and conflicts of interest, even the bureau that’s been assigned to deal with the Open and Accountable Elections program has washed its hands of the matter.
Under an ordinance that Portland City Council passed in an unexpected maneuver on March 8, the system-which will give money to future candidates for city commissioner-is now under the direct control of a sitting city commissioner.
“I think we all agree that’s not a perfect solution,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said in a tense hearing on the concept last Wednesday, March 7. “In the short term I’m supporting this, because the program has to go somewhere.”
“I can’t support this in its current form,” Commissioner Dan Saltzman said at the meeting. “It just doesn’t look right.”
Kansas City Star: Complaint alleges Greitens lied about charity donor list on campaign disclosures
By Jason Hancock
A complaint filed Wednesday with the Missouri Ethics Commission alleges that Gov. Eric Greitens lied on his finance disclosure reports about how and when his campaign acquired a donor list belonging to a veterans charity.
Former Missouri Democratic Party chairman Roy Temple filed the complaint Wednesday. It follows a complaint he filed in 2016 alleging the governor failed to disclose that his campaign had obtained a list of donors to The Mission Continues, a charity Greitens founded in 2007.
As a result of Temple’s 2016 complaint, Greitens agreed to pay a $100 fine and amend his campaign disclosure reports to include the charity’s donor list as a $600 in-kind contribution from Danny Laub, who was listed as Greitens’ campaign manager at the time.
The Mission Continues has been adamant that it did not – and would not – give Greitens’ campaign or any campaign its donor list. Doing so could violate federal law and put the charity’s tax-exempt status at risk.
