The Courts
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: Suit challenges state’s limit on campaign-donation time
By Linda Satter
A constitutional challenge was filed Monday over a state law that bars candidates for elected office from accepting or soliciting campaign contributions more than two years before an election.
Peggy Jones, a longtime political activist from Pulaski County, contends in the lawsuit that Arkansas Code 7-6-203(e) imposes a blackout period that limits her right to political expression by preventing her from donating money to people she wants to support as candidates in the 2022 election cycle.
She said the law, adopted by Arkansas voters in 1996 as part of a package of amendments to state campaign finance laws, also stifles core political activity by preventing the candidates she favors from raising funds required to run an effective campaign.
The lawsuit, filed on Jones’ behalf by attorney John Tull of the Quattlebaum, Grooms and Tull firm in Little Rock, names as a defendant Larry Jegley, in his capacity as prosecuting attorney for Pulaski County, who would have to enforce the law in Jones’ case. It also names as defendants the five members of the Arkansas Ethics Commission, which levies fines against candidates who accept contributions in violation of the blackout period…
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Little Rock and was assigned to U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson, who is being asked to declare the law unconstitutional under the First Amendment and to bar its enforcement.
Congress
Washington Post: Facebook and Google to be quizzed on white nationalism and political bias as Congress pushes dueling reasons for regulation
By Tony Romm
[A] series of recent, high-profile failures in the eyes of some Democrats and Republicans have prompted renewed debate in Washington over the need to hold tech companies accountable for the content they allow or block on the web.
That tension will be on display beginning Tuesday, when House Democratic lawmakers plan to explore the spread of white nationalism on social media… …
GOP leaders on the chamber’s Judiciary Committee focused much of their attention on allegations that Facebook, Google and Twitter had been too heavy handed in taking down content online, resulting in conservative users, news and views being suppressed…
Republicans led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz plan to revive those allegations with a hearing of their own Wednesday…
“The whole area of social media is pretty much unregulated,” said GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), the leader of the Judiciary Committee…
Members of Congress who seek to hold tech companies accountable for hate speech – or penalize them for decisions believed to be motivated by political bias – could strike at the heart of a federal law the industry has lobbied intensely to protect. They last chipped away at Section 230 in 2018 as part of an effort to crack down on sexual exploitation online…
Nadler, the leader of the House Judiciary Committee, expressed unease with upending that law. For now, he said the goal is to “see what happens by just pressuring them first.” But he didn’t rule out regulation if tech giants don’t improve their practices.
“We have the First Amendment, and we’re very reluctant to pass speech laws,” he said. “But there’s a problem, and we have to deal with it.”
New York Times: Devin Nunes Sues McClatchy Newspaper Chain, Alleging ‘Character Assassination’
By Daniel Victor
Less than a month after suing Twitter for allowing its users to insult him, Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican from California, said he was suing the McClatchy Company, a newspaper chain, over what he called “character assassination.”
The defamation lawsuit seeks $150 million and the deletion of an article in The Fresno Bee, a McClatchy newspaper, about Alpha Omega Winery, a company that Mr. Nunes partially owns. The article, published last May, described a lawsuit by a server who was aboard a San Francisco Bay cruise in 2015 attended by some of the winery’s top investors, which she said included drugs and prostitution.
The article said it was “unclear” whether Mr. Nunes “was aware of the lawsuit or was affiliated with the fund-raiser” at which the cruise was auctioned.
The lawsuit filed by Mr. Nunes, a loyal ally of President Trump and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says he was not involved in the incident on the yacht and that he considers the article part of a politically motivated scheme to “destroy his reputation” and derail the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election…
The lawsuit also names as a defendant Liz Mair, a Republican strategist who was also named in the Twitter lawsuit. Mr. Nunes accuses Ms. Mair of offering “egregious sound bites to McClatchy,” referring to critical comments she made in a separate article. She tweeted a link to the Fresno Bee article about the cruise, suggesting that she was working in a “conspiracy” with McClatchy, the lawsuit claims.
Online Speech Platforms
Cato: Why the Government Should Not Regulate Content Moderation of Social Media
By John Samples
President Trump recently complained that Google searches are biased against Republicans and conservatives. Many conservatives argue that Facebook and Google are monopolies seeking to restrict conservative speech. In contrast, many on the left complain that large social media platforms fostered both Trump’s election in 2016 and violence in Charlottesville in 2017. Many on both sides believe that government should actively regulate the moderation of social media platforms to attain fairness, balance, or other values.
Yet American law and culture strongly circumscribe government power to regulate speech on the internet and elsewhere. Regulations of social media companies might either indirectly restrict individual speech or directly limit a right to curate an internet platform. The First Amendment offers strong protections against such restrictions. Congress has offered additional protections to tech companies by freeing them from most intermediary liability for speech that appears on their platforms. The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that private companies in general are not bound by the First Amendment.
However, some activists support new efforts by the government to regulate social media. Although some platforms are large and dominant, their market power can disintegrate, and alternatives are available for speakers excluded from a platform. The history of broadcast regulation shows that government regulation tends to support rather than mitigate monopolies.
The Bulwark: Conservatives Hated the Fairness Doctrine. Now They Want One for Social Media.
By Jim Swift
About a dozen or so years ago, leading into the 2008 presidential election, conservatives were beating the drum to prevent the so-called “fairness doctrine” from being implemented again in some form, having been repealed in 1987…
Mike Pence, then a member of the House, even sponsored legislation to put a stop to any reintroduction. Back then, the refrain was “if you don’t like it, don’t listen” or, as the Heritage Foundation’s Rebecca Hagelin put it to would-be champions of a new fairness doctrine: “What are you afraid of?” …
Senator Josh Hawley recently sent a chilling letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, encouraging him to submit to a third-party audit of his company’s policies regarding suspending users…
Here’s part of Hawley’s letter to Twitter:
“Congress has given you a sweetheart deal-immunity from liability for illegal content posted by third parties-because tech companies like yours promised to provide ‘a forum for a true diversity of political discourse,'” the senator wrote in his letter. “Yet your company has repeatedly abused that privilege.”
Could it be that Congress gave Jack Dorsey a “sweetheart deal? Not really the case. Hawley relies on a congressional finding in section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
The Internet and other interactive computer services offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity.
…
[D]id you notice that Hawley is selectively applying this finding just to Twitter, when the actual finding’s text is talking about how the Internet as a whole, not specifically Twitter, offers this forum.
New York Times: Meet the Man Behind Trump’s Biden Tweet
By Charlie Warzel
Welcome to 2019, where it takes just 19 hours for a faked homemade video of Joe Biden to travel from the keyboard of a pseudonymous “memesmith” to the president of the United States.
The video, which splices footage from Mr. Biden’s recent apology for unwanted touching of several women with older footage of Mr. Biden, ricocheted around the pro-Trump corners of the internet. First on Twitter, then across Reddit forums, before getting picked up by White House director of social media Dan Scavino, Donald Trump Jr. and, finally, the president, who appended the caption “WELCOME BACK JOE!” …
The entire event is at once silly, trivial, offensive and, thanks to Donald Trump’s Twitter feed, something we’re now begrudgingly made to pay attention to. The same goes for the video’s creator, a stay-at-home dad in his mid-30s, who goes by the pseudonym “CarpeDonktum.” As his handle indicates, the meme creator is purposefully outrageous and yet, seemingly now has an indirect line to the Oval Office. And his elevation – from a Kansas City keyboard warrior to right-wing internet fame as the president’s unofficial meme maker – is a telling example of how the internet has fully blurred the lines between meme posting and business of politics…
In theory, his story is a perfect realization of the utopian understanding of the utopian promise of the internet: a truly democratic system of communication where anyone, anywhere can create things and get them seen by important people – even the president!
But in keeping with our current political moment, that utopian vision is used for vapid, divisive ends. The reality, as we should all know by now, is darker and a whole lot dumber.
Fundraising
Politico: Democrats are cozying up to corporate lobbyists despite purity pledges
By Theodoric Meyer
“We need to get rid of corporate special interest money in politics,” Cisneros said at a candidate forum last year.
But less than six months after winning election in a former Republican stronghold, Cisneros is not exactly keeping his distance from corporate special interests in Washington.
Four lobbyists – who represent major corporate clients including AT&T, Comcast, Microsoft, Pfizer, Verizon and Wells Fargo – hosted a fundraiser for Cisneros late last month at a townhouse on Capitol Hill, according to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee list of fundraisers obtained by Politico…
The listing for the event noted, “Cisneros for Congress gladly accepts money from non-corporate PACs.”
The event didn’t violate Cisneros’ pledge to swear off corporate PAC money. But it illustrates a larger trend of Democratic lawmakers who have promised to steer clear of corporate PACs allowing the same corporations’ lobbyists to write them personal checks – and in some cases even host fundraisers for them…
Several Democratic lobbyists see more than a little hypocrisy in how lawmakers are adhering to their pledges.
One Democratic candidate running last cycle who refused to take corporate PAC money nevertheless approached executives at a Fortune 500 company and asked them to write personal checks to his campaign, according to a Democratic in-house lobbyist for the company with direct knowledge of the incident.
“It is a ridiculous double standard,” the lobbyist said.
An in-house lobbyist for another company said he’d encouraged executives not to give to Democrats who won’t take corporate PAC money. “Our position thus far is if you don’t feel like our employees’ money is good enough for you, our executives’ money is not, either,” the lobbyist said.
Political Parties
New York Times: House Democratic Campaign Arm Nears War With Liberals Over Primary Fights
By Catie Edmondson
Progressive Democrats were infuriated last month when Representative Cheri Bustos of Illinois, the chairwoman of the campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, moved to protect centrist incumbents by formally breaking committee business ties with political consultants and pollsters who go to work for primary challengers.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who owes her seat to a successful primary challenge, went so far as to encourage her 3.8 million Twitter followers to “pause” their donations to the campaign committee in protest…
Ms. Bustos’s rule prohibits Democratic consultants and vendors working for a primary challenger to an incumbent from receiving work from the committee. It comes as ardent liberal organizations like Justice Democrats, emboldened by a pair of high-profile wins in 2018 – Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez – are aggressively gearing up to challenge centrist or old-line Democrats with liberal candidates.
In the latest swipe in a fight that has erupted into open hostilities, a coalition of progressive groups on Friday introduced an online database of go-to vendors for insurgent candidates emblazoned with the heading, “Despite the D.C.C.C.’s bullying, we’re still going to work on primaries.” …
“We reject the D.C.C.C.’s attempt to hoard power, which will only serve to keep that talent pool – and Congress itself – disproportionately white and male,” María Urbina, the national political director for Indivisible, a progressive grass-roots group, said of the campaign committee. “Incumbents who engage fully with their constituents shouldn’t fear primaries and shouldn’t rely on the national institutions like the D.C.C.C. to suppress challenges before voters ever have a say.”
Candidates and Campaigns
The Hill: Opposition to PACs puts 2020 Democrats in a bind
By Alex Gangitano
Candidates who reject PAC money also run the risk of alienating groups looking to advance progressive policies.
Michael McBride, a pastor in Oakland, Calif., who started the Black Church PAC in 2017, said his group donates to candidates who focus on urban gun violence prevention, environmental issues, ending mass incarceration and addressing voter suppression.
He views the PAC as a means of engagement for his community.
“I think it would be a mistake to walk away from these newly structured containers unless you have a better option or better vision of how to get these resources to the ground,” McBride told The Hill.
“There has to be this conversation among progressives and the Democratic Party. What does it mean to actively invest in the leadership of black women, black folks, black religious institutions that can help the party actually meet this kind of challenge of enthusiasm and turnout? And unless we have containers that specialize in that, then we’re just leaving it up to a lot of folks to do the work who have historically failed,” he added.
The Media
Reason: Will a Free Press Cheer on Government Censorship of the Internet?
By Scott Shackford
The British authorities are pondering a proposal to create an entirely new government agency to regulate, and even punish, online communication platforms to make them more thorough in removing content the government deems dangerous or violent…
What may be more surprising is how willing people in the media-people whose work depends on the right to a free press-are to frame this as a story of wise leaders holding the feet of those irresponsible, profit-grubbing Silicon Valley tech bros to the fire.
Consider Tony Romm’s report on the British plan, published in The Washington Post. It contains a lot of loaded language for what is supposed to be a straightforward news story. The lede to Romm’s piece describes these online companies as having “long dodged responsibility for what its users say or share,” not-so-subtly suggesting that Facebook and Google are getting away something sinister. The article later says these companies face this regulation because they are “failing to clean up a host of troubling content.” …
Romm also links to a pro-censorship “Somebody do something!” panicked commentary by Margaret Sullivan that insists that social media companies have to “deal with the crisis that they helped create” by using “editorial judgment” to control what can be said on their platforms, just like news outlets do.
The punchline: Directly under Sullivan’s panicked fearmongering are 1,300 comments posted by readers. They were not, in fact, hand-picked by the Washington Post’s editors…
If, say, the U.S. government were to fine the Washington Post if somebody posted an inappropriate comment and their moderators didn’t delete it fast enough, how long would it take for commenting to be removed entirely?
The States
New York Daily News: A small-donor matching public campaign finance system is in reach in New York
By Lawrence Norden and Chisun Lee
Death by commission. That’s what cynics are saying about a new law passed in Albany as part of the budget, which mandates creation of a statewide system public financing of elections, but leaves most of the details of that reform in the hands of an appointed panel.
For now, death by commission is only a pessimistic prediction. We’re cynics about Albany, too, but the weeks before the budget vote showed that the press, New Yorkers and Washington policymakers are watching what happens with public financing. As long as that attention remains, our elected officials will find it difficult not to follow through…
Nationally, the House last month passed its own version of small donor public financing as part of the larger For the People Act. Last week, 47 senators co-sponsored a Senate version.
“We believe that small donor matching is among the best means possible to tackle the dangerous, undue influence of big money in our politics,” wrote Reps. Jerry Nadler, Hakeem Jeffries, Carolyn Maloney and three other New York State representatives in a March 29 letter to the governor, the state Senate majority leader, and the state Assembly speaker. “New York State is in a unique position to show the rest of the country how this meaningful and necessary campaign finance reform can be accomplished and make a difference in our politics.”
We’ll know very soon if the cynics are right, or if the commission is what our leaders have promised.
