In the News
Pensacola News Journal: Escambia School Board candidate sues Florida over fine for saying he’s a Republican
By Jim Little
A candidate for the Escambia County School Board is suing the state of Florida after he was fined following the 2018 election for telling voters he was a Republican while running for the nonpartisan office.
Kells Hetherington ran for the nonpartisan Escambia County School Board District 2 seat in 2018, and his campaign material included a line that stated he was a “lifelong Republican.”
Florida law prohibits candidates running for a nonpartisan office, such as a school board seat, from campaigning based on party affiliation or stating any party affiliation…
Hetherington’s use of the phrase “lifelong Republican” resulted in a $200 fine from the Florida Elections Commission.
Hetherington, who has again filed to run for the same seat in 2022, partnered with the Institute for Free Speech to file a federal lawsuit Thursday against the state over the fine and the prohibition on candidates for nonpartisan offices telling voters their party affiliation.
New from the Institute for Free Speech
School Board Candidate Sues Florida to Protect His Right to Tell Voters He’s a Republican
Kells Hetherington is running for the Escambia County School Board to offer his experience in finance to help cut costs and improve performance in the county’s public schools. But he fears being punished for sharing his party membership with potential voters, and for good reason. The last time he ran for school board, the Florida Elections Commission fined him $200 for stating that he is a “lifelong Republican.”
Today, with the help of the Institute for Free Speech, Hetherington filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Florida law he was punished for violating. Candidates have a First Amendment right to speak to voters about their political views and background. States can establish nonpartisan offices, but they cannot prohibit candidates from mentioning their membership in a political party.
“Fining a candidate for telling voters their party affiliation is a clear violation of the First Amendment. Florida’s law bans speech that is important to voters, and the candidates appealing to them, at precisely the time it is most relevant,” said Institute for Free Speech Attorney Owen Yeates.
Party membership is one of the most valuable pieces of information about a candidate to the voting public. It gives an immediate impression of the candidate’s outlook and perspective. States should not prohibit candidates from sharing truthful information about their political background…
The case is Hetherington v. Lee. It is before the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division. To read the complaint, click here.
IFS Amicus Brief in Support of Petitioners: Campbell v. Pennsylvania School Boards Association
The Third Circuit agreed that the government defendants in this case suppressed or punished Petitioners’ use of the Pennsylvania Right to Know Law by filing objectively baseless state tort claims for defamation, tortious interference with contractual relations, and abuse of process. However, it applied the Noerr-Pennington doctrine— a judicially created defense securing First Amendment rights against certain business torts—to bar Petitioners’ Section 1983 action alleging government retaliation. Thus, the Third Circuit held that the First Amendment shielded government defendants from Petitioners’ retaliation claim.
Amicus Institute for Free Speech support Petitioners and urge the Court to grant certiorari, focusing on the threshold question of whether a state entity has a First Amendment “right” to petition that may provide immunity from liability for constitutional torts. If the Court grants review, it should also address Petitioners’ second question, but a correct resolution of the first question would render it superfluous.
Congress
Roll Call: At the Races
By Bridget Bowman, Kate Ackley, and Stephanie Akin
Senate Democrats plan to take up next month their major voting and campaign finance package, known as S 1 in the chamber. The Rules and Administration Committee has set a May 11 markup of the 800-page bill, Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar said this week.
The Hill: House Republicans circulate memo on legislative concepts targeting Big Tech
By Rebecca Klar
Republican staff on the House Energy and Commerce Committee circulated a memo Thursday morning outlining legislative concepts aimed at reining in some of the power of the largest tech companies in the U.S.
The legislative concepts outlined in the memo largely target content moderation practices and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the controversial law that provides a liability shield for tech platforms for third-party content posted on their sites.
It builds off of the Big Tech Accountability Platform that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), the top Republican on the committee, released earlier this year…
The memo outlines a legislative concept aimed at requiring “reasonable moderation practices” at the Big Tech companies.
And it more specifically lays out a legislative concept to modify Section 230 to “only provide liability protection for moderation of speech that is not protected by the First Amendment or specifically listed in the statute” and to remove the liability protection under Section 230 for content moderation decision made by the companies that “discriminate based on political affiliation or viewpoint.”
Fundraising
Politico: Election objectors leaned on small donors after corporate PAC backlash
By Zach Montellaro, Theodoric Meyer and Allan James Vestal
Most House Republicans who objected to the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory saw their small-dollar fundraising rise in the first three months of this year compared to the same quarter in 2019, in the latest indication that Republicans aren’t facing a major cash crunch three months after many corporate PACs vowed to stop giving to their campaigns.
The rise in small-dollar donations helped to offset a decrease in PAC donations for many members, according to an analysis of quarterly campaign finance data that was due Thursday.
While 55 of the 95 House Republican objectors whose filings POLITICO analyzed saw their fundraising decline compared with the first quarter of 2019, 40 saw it rise.
And a majority of them — 57 — saw their small-dollar fundraising go up compared with the first quarter of 2019.
Online Speech Platforms
New York Times: Feeding Hate With Video: A Former Alt-Right YouTuber Explains His Methods
By Cade Metz
“We would choose the most dramatic moment — or fake it and make it look more dramatic,” [filmmaker Caolan] Robertson, 25, said in a recent interview. “We realized that if we wanted a future on YouTube, it had to be driven by confrontation. Every time we did that kind of thing, it would explode well beyond anything else.”
Mr. Robertson would go on to produce videos for a who’s who of right-wing YouTube personalities on both sides of the Atlantic, including Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux and Alex Jones.
The videos were tailored for the “echo chamber” that is often created by social media networks like YouTube. To keep you watching, YouTube serves up videos similar to those you have watched before. But the longer someone watches, the more extreme the videos can become.
“It can create these very radical people who are like gurus,” said Guillaume Chaslot, a former YouTube engineer who has been critical of the way the company’s algorithms pushed people to extreme content. “In terms of watch time, a guru is wonderful.”
The States
New York Times: Outside Money Floods Mayor’s Race, Raising Ethics Concerns
By Dana Rubinstein and Jeffery C. Mays
New York City’s pivotal mayor’s race has unleashed an army of super PACs the likes of which the city has never seen…
The proliferation of super PACs supporting individual candidates in the race — a familiar theme in presidential races, but unheard of in a New York City mayoral contest — points to the gravity of this year’s election in the midst of a pandemic.
But it also raises the question of whether the super PACs are simply a way to get around campaign finance limits and may lead to scrutiny of possible coordination between the outside funds and political campaigns, a practice that would violate campaign finance rules.
The issue came into sharp focus on Thursday, when New York City’s Campaign Finance Board withheld the release of public matching funds to [Shaun] Donovan’s campaign. The board said it wanted to ensure there had been no coordination between the campaign and the super PAC supporting him, which is largely funded by his father.
Associated Press: Ricketts creates credential system for media covering events
By Grant Schulte
[Unveiled on Thursday, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts’] new press-conference policy requires news outlets to get credentialed by filling out a 12-question application and submitting a notarized letter from a manager confirming that reporters work for the outlet they claim and don’t receive payment from other sources.
The application says the governor’s office will review whether applicants maintain “journalistic integrity” by confirming whether they’re a “bone fide journalist” and have no “real or perceived” conflicts of interest, among other factors.
The credentialing questionnaire also asks if applicants are engaged in lobbying or paid advocacy, and whether there’s a “clear distinction” between each outlet’s newsgathering and editorial-writing divisions. It also inquires about how outlets are funded.
Dawaune Lamont Hayes, who founded NOISE in 2018, said the criteria are so vague and subjective that they allow the governor’s staffers to shut out any news outlet they choose at any time. Hayes said the policy could be applied to any news outlet that asks hard questions or writes less-than-flattering stories about Ricketts or his administration.
“This is a clear attempt to block freedom of the press and freedom of speech and deny access to public information,” said Hayes, a 2016 Creighton University journalism graduate.
Axios: Veiled attacks rile Virginia governor’s race
By Lachlan Markay
A new political group in Virginia is taking pains to keep the people behind it a secret. And one candidate in the state’s gubernatorial race claims it is buying ads designed to falsely make it look like they’re coming from him.
The group, dubbed the Patriot Leadership Trust, has succeeded in hiding the identities of its principals, depriving Virginians of information about the people and interests seeking to sway their votes in a bellwether off-year race.
The Patriot Leadership Trust has bought radio ads and direct mail pieces attacking Glenn Youngkin, a former private equity executive vying for the Republican nomination.
Its latest direct mail piece, which attacked Youngkin over his ostensible support for the Southern Poverty Law Center, drew condemnation Wednesday from one of Youngkin’s rivals, Virginia’s former Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox.
Cox accused the Patriot Leadership Trust of attempting to give the false impression that the attack came from his campaign, citing similarities in its name and mailing address to those of a PAC affiliated with Cox.
“This is the latest in a series of attacks launched by shadowy PACs that are potentially violating the letter and spirit of Virginia’s campaign finance laws,” Cox said in a statement.
Cox was very clear the mail piece “is not coming from me, or anyone associated with me.” Who it is coming from is less clear.
Orlando Sentinel: Florida Senate passes ‘anti-riot’ bill, sends it to DeSantis to sign into law
By Gray Rohrer and Mark Skoneki
The Florida Senate on Thursday approved an “anti-riot” bill championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, sending it to him for signature into law over the objections of Democrats and civil rights groups who say the measure infringes on the fundamental First Amendment right to protest.
The hotly debated measure passed 23-17, largely along partisan lines.
The parts of the bill (HB 1) that most upset Democrats grant civil legal immunity to people who drive through protesters blocking a road; prevent people arrested for rioting or offenses committed during a riot from bailing out of jail until their first court appearance; and impose a six-month mandatory sentence for battery on a police officer during a riot.
National Coalition Against Censorship: States Consider Bills That Threaten Protest Rights
Since the beginning of the year, almost sixty-eight bills have been introduced in state legislatures that could infringe on the right to protest. Some of the bills seek to increase penalties for certain protests. Others aim to expand the definition of “riot” in order to criminalize certain protests. LegisScan only rates six of the bills as not clearly partisan. Based on the bills’ sponsors, LegisScan rated two as “partisan – Democratic” and over fifty are ranked “partisan – Republican”…
Thirty-four of the bills include provisions that attempt to criminalize protest by expanding the application of anti-riot laws. Some seek to expand the definition of “rioting” or “unlawful assembly” in ways that could include lawful protest. Fourteen of the bills would effectively criminalize actions that encourage or aid protest by classifying them as “incitement to riot” or similar crimes. Thirty bills criminalize protesting in a manner which blocks traffic. Fourteen bills go so far as to provide either civil or criminal immunity for drivers who injure protestors who are blocking traffic or to individuals who use force to resist “rioters.” Finally, several of the bills encourage local officials to use force to silence protest by, for example, providing that local officials can be sued by anyone whose property is damaged during a protest if the official delays or limits police crackdowns on ongoing protests.
