CCP

Mainstream Media Baffled by National Interest in Georgia Special Election

By Alex Cordell

Based on the levels of national media coverage alone, the extent to which people outside of the 6th congressional district got involved is not exactly surprising. It’s important to remember that although the race did not occur on the first Tuesday of November, it was still a federal election, with national implications. As such, it is not out of the realm of possibility that a concerned voter from Virginia or Massachusetts, who may not be able to physically volunteer in Georgia, would want to participate…

Is a more involved and outspoken electorate really something to rebuke? Of course not. Phone-banking and door-knocking are great ways to get involved and donate your time to candidates or groups whose message resonates with you, but not everyone has the time or ability to do that. Donating money just happens to be a convenient way for voters across the country to voice their opinion and stay active in American politics.

We should be encouraging – not stigmatizing – increased engagement in the political process. At the end of the day, the significant spending levels in the special election between Handel and Ossoff is merely a reflection of this increased interest in our politics.

Free Speech

Reason: Supporting Laws Banning Hate Speech Means Supporting Police Raids on People’s Homes

By Scott Shackford

This week German police, in a coordinated effort, raided the homes of 36 people accused of violating the country’s hate speech laws…

Americans who want to create an exception that “hate speech” not be protected by the First Amendment often point to Europe and insist countries with such speech bans are no less free for it…

In practice, we see the obvious truth of hate speech law enforcement…

Several years ago the mayor of Peoria arranged for the police to raid the home of a man who made a Twitter account parodying him. After news of the raid went viral, the mayor showed absolutely no remorse for the absurd reason behind it and insisted he was the one who had his freedom of speech trampled.

Politicians would like nothing better than to possess the means to punish those who make fun of them. The local college diversity committee wouldn’t be meting out punishment. The politicians would.

Look at what’s happening to hate crime laws. People enacted these laws allegedly to protect minorities from violence based on their identities. Now states have added law enforcement as a protected class, and police are calling for sentencing punishments for those who say mean things about them when they are arrested.

It’s reckless to think that hate speech laws won’t end up in a similar place.

JSTOR Daily: How the Espionage Act Became a Tool of Repression

By Matthew Wills

Geoffrey R. Stone points out that the legislators did not intend the law to have the “severely repressive effect attributed to it by the federal courts.” The Act became a judicial assault on free speech and the First Amendment, powered in part by what a Department of Justice official later called a popular rush for “indiscriminate prosecution” of dissenters and the “wholesale repression and restraint of public opinion.”…

Stone gives some examples. Rose Pastor Stokes: sentenced to ten years for saying “I am for the people and the government is for the profiteers.” D.T. Blodgett: sentenced to twenty years for circulating a leaflet urging voters in Iowa not to reelect a congressman who voted for conscription. Reverend Clarence H. Waldron: convicted for distributing a pamphlet stating that Christians were forbidden to fight. (Stone notes, “The government was especially aggressive in its prosecution of clergymen who supported peace or conscientious objection.”) Robert Goldstein: convicted for producing a motion picture about the American Revolution that portrayed the British (allies in the fight against Germany in 1917) in a negative light. 

Congress

National Review: Senator Feinstein Thinks It’s Acceptable for Violent Mobs to Control Speech

By Katherine Timpf

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) said that it was okay for universities to cancel controversial speakers over threats of violence – and people got mad at her for trying to silence “conservative” voices…

But the truth is, what Feinstein said shouldn’t be upsetting for partisan reasons – it’s much, much bigger than that…

The issue is this: Feinsten is saying that students are not free to bring any speaker that they choose to their campuses, because campuses are not safe places for free speech, and that that is totally acceptable and fine. Remove the ideology of the “controversial” speakers in question, and it becomes clear just how absurdly out of line Feinstein really is.
Student groups choosing and inviting speakers is a normal, acceptable campus protocol, and even “offensive” speech is protected under the First Amendment. So, basically, what Feinstein is saying is that colleges do not have a duty to make sure that the First Amendment is protected on campus – that it is not important for campuses to make sure that the First Amendment is not able to be overridden by threats from violent mobs.

The Media

TV News Check: Be Prepared To Defend Political Advertising

By Harry A. Jessell

The Democrats are licking their wounds, having failed on Tuesday to capture the 6th Congressional District outside Atlanta in what is being called the costliest House race in history…

The big numbers will inevitably spark new calls for laws that put caps on campaign spending from those who feel the fundraising that supports it corrupts our representative democracy, that it gives wealthy contributors undue influence in the political process…
Right now, there is not much danger that the reformers will prevail and that government will move to put any meaningful limits on individuals or associations that want to delve into political speech…

Nonetheless, broadcasters should be well versed in defending the current state of political fundraising and spending and I have the perfect thing for their getting versed.

It’s The Soul of the First Amendment by Floyd Abrams, the noted First Amendment scholar and litigator who argued against spending restrictions in Citizens United as a representative of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Donors

Rolling Stone: Meet the Megadonor Behind the LGBTQ Rights Movement

By Andy Kroll

In the past three decades, Gill has methodically, often stealthily, poured $422 million of his fortune into the cause of equal rights for the LGBTQ community – more than any other person in America…

Today, Gill’s sprawling network of LGBTQ advocacy groups rivals any big-money operation in the country. The Gill Foundation, which he started in 1994, underwrites academic research, polling, litigation, data analytics and field organizing. Gill Action, a political group launched a decade later, has helped elect hundreds of pro-equality lawmakers at the local, state and federal levels. OutGiving, his donor club, coaches the country’s richest pro-LGBTQ funders on how best to spend their money. Gill’s fingerprints are on nearly every major victory in the march to marriage, from the 2003 Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health case, which made Massachusetts the first state to allow same-sex marriage, to the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision two decades later that legalized it in all 50. “Without a doubt,” says Mary Bonauto, the attorney who argued the Obergefell case, “we would not be where we are without Tim Gill and the Gill Foundation.”

The States

Albuquerque Journal: Campaign spending disclosure proposal raising concerns

By Dan Boyd  

A plan to increase New Mexico campaign spending disclosure requirements has come under fire from at least one national group, while also raising concern among local nonprofit groups who engage in “voter education” efforts but don’t directly advocate for candidates or ballot measures…

Oriana Sandoval, the chief executive officer of the Center for Civic Policy, an Albuquerque-based nonprofit, said she supports the intent of Toulouse Oliver’s proposal but is concerned about certain language in the rules.

“We’re concerned the rules may treat civic engagement efforts … as electioneering,” Sandoval said. “Just the fact we mention (a candidate) shouldn’t trigger a reporting requirement.”

Specifically, the rules would require donor disclosure if a political advertisement meeting the spending threshold had “no other reasonable interpretation” than as an appeal to vote for or against a candidate or ballot measure.

They could also trigger disclosure if any political ad launched within 60 days of a general election specifically mentioned a ballot measure or candidate.