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
Iowa Capital Dispatch: Group that backed Ernst seeks FEC documents in fight to keep its own records secret
By Clark Kauffman
A group that supported U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst’s 2020 reelection bid is asking a federal judge to force the Federal Election Commission to turn over information related its handling of a complaint.
The Clive-based group Iowa Values allegedly spent close to $1.5 million supporting the Iowa Republican senator’s successful reelection campaign and is now being sued in federal court by the Campaign Legal Center, a national, non-partisan advocacy group.
The lawsuit marks the first known use of an obscure provision in federal campaign law that allows a private individual or group to take a claim of campaign finance violations directly to federal court. It was triggered by the Federal Election Commission’s inaction on a complaint the CLC filed against Iowa Values in 2019.
New York Times: Lt. Gov. Benjamin Resigns Following Campaign Finance Indictment
By William K. Rashbaum, Nicholas Fandos and Jeffery C. Mays
Lt. Gov. Brian A. Benjamin of New York resigned on Tuesday, hours after federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment implicating him in a brazen scheme to enrich his political campaigns with illegal donations…
“This is a simple story of corruption,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a news conference before Mr. Benjamin’s resignation…
Mr. Williams . . . laid out the details of the indictment. It accused Mr. Benjamin of bribing Mr. Migdol to help secure small contributions for his comptroller race that could be used to obtain tens of thousands of dollars in public matching funds through a city program.
Candidates and Campaigns
Fox News: Google’s Gmail censorship cost GOP candidates $2B since 2019, Republicans say, citing new stud
By Peter Hasson
Google’s Gmail cost Republican candidates over $2 billion in donations since 2019 by flagging most fundraising emails as spam, according to research shared exclusively with Fox News Digital by the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, National Republican Senate Committee.
The Republicans based their conclusions on a North Carolina State University study that found Gmail allows the vast majority of emails from Democratic to land in the user’s inbox while more than two-thirds of messages from conservative candidates are marked as spam.
Gmail “retained the majority of left-wing candidate emails in inbox (< 10.12% marked as spam) while sent the majority of right-wing candidate emails to the spam folder (up to 77.2% marked as spam),” the study found.
Free Expression
New York Times: These 8 Conservative Men Are Making No Apologies
By Patrick Healy and Adrian J. Rivera
[L]istening to our 90-minute focus group with eight conservative men, you couldn’t help but worry for our democracy a bit.
The men didn’t see themselves fitting into American society today. They didn’t feel free to be themselves in the culture. Seven of them said they felt like a stranger in their own country. At a time when democratic institutions are under pressure — and even under attack — and the United States feels so ununited, what causes these Americans to feel so alienated from America? …
To that end, safety was a major theme: concern about being physically attacked and also concern about being verbally attacked for what they say. Several felt the cost of saying what they really think is sometimes just not worth it, evoking worries among some Americans about free speech and cancel culture.
Reason: Are Newsletters the Future of Free Speech?
By Matt Welch
“Society has a trust problem,” Substack co-founders Hamish McKenzie, Chris Best, and Jairaj Sethi declared in a joint statement late January. “More censorship will only make it worse.” …
Like his co-founders, McKenzie believes fervently that the independent-operator newsletter and podcasting model, as opposed to the cheap conflicts of social media and industrial neuroses of legacy journalism outlets, is the way out of a news and political conversation that has become distrustful and coarse. “We started Substack to improve discourse and help restore financial dignity to writers and help readers take back their minds,” he says.
Welch spoke with McKenzie in San Francisco this February.
The States
New Hampshire Bulletin: AG’s Office argues bill would hinder public protection in the name of personal privacy
By Annmarie Timmins
[Senate Bill 302] now before the House Judiciary Committee would limit, and in some cases eliminate, the ability of government agencies to obtain and disclose to the public the names of nonprofit board members. It also would make it burdensome to use donor information when needed to investigate concerns about fraud or potential conflicts of interest…
But defeating the bill, which imposes civil and criminal penalties for violators, will be an uphill battle. Few organizations have joined the Attorney General’s Office in publicly opposing it.
Meanwhile, a diverse group of supporters – from ACLU-NH to Americans for Prosperity, a conservative issue advocacy group – have already persuaded the Senate to pass the bill, arguing that it promotes personal privacy. Other supporters include the New Hampshire Coalition for Domestic and Sexual Violence.
SB 302 is needed, they said, to protect donors, members, and volunteers from harassment by those who oppose their affiliations, and it would prevent them from receiving endless solicitations from other organizations. (Nonprofits could still voluntarily identify donors, which many do in their annual reports with an option of allowing them to be anonymous.)…
[Greg Moore, state director of Americans for Prosperity in New Hampshire] cited two concerns to the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.
News Channel 5: Campaign reform passes House committee but without total ‘dark money’ disclosure
By Phil Williams
Legislation to require more disclosure of money spent to influence elections sailed through a legislative committee Tuesday after House Speaker Cameron Sexton made a personal appearance to advocate for the reforms.
Among the provisions: The legislation would require additional reporting of contributions and expenditures in the 10 days before an election. It would make the officers of political action committees personally liable for paying penalties for violations of the law. And it would require candidates and officials to disclose more about their sources of income.
Still, faced with a conservative backlash, the committee bill did not include language that would have required so-called “dark money” groups to disclose who might be funding their messages praising or condemning candidates during their campaigns…
Gary Humble, with the conservative group Tennessee Stands, argued afterward that the bill is unclear about exactly what kinds of expenditures would need to be reported.
Humble said he expected a lawsuit would be filed if the bill becomes law.
“This is an affront on free speech all the way around. And the fact that we have a Speaker of the House that’s willing to sit on a committee and say that this has nothing to do with free speech is absurd.”
MPRN: Michigan House considers bill to close campaign finance loophole
By Colin Jackson
A bill in the Michigan House would set fundraising rules for elected officials fighting a recall effort.
The bill is a response to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s re-election campaign fundraising heavily last year when she faced multiple recall petitions.
State Representative Ann Bollin (R-Brighton Twp) said Whitmer used a 1984 ruling from former Secretary of State Richard Austin to get around personal contribution limits…
She said her bill would close that exception…
The Michigan Department of State said it’s not ready to support the bill yet but is willing to work with lawmakers on it.
Michigan Department of State legislative policy director Erin Schor said her department has some concerns about the bill. For example:
