Congress
The Hill: Schumer sets September voting rights fight after GOP blocks quick debate
By Jordain Carney
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is setting up a new voting rights and election reform fight for September after Republicans blocked quick action on a series of measures.
Schumer, during an all-night session early Wednesday morning, teed up a Senate vote for mid-September on taking up the election debate. He’ll need 10 GOP votes to start debate, assuming every member of his caucus votes yes, likely dooming the new effort absent a significant, unexpected, shift from moderate Democrats on changing the chamber’s rules.
“Voting rights, voting rights, will be the first matter of legislative business when the Senate returns to session in September. Our democracy demands no less,” Schumer said.
Because Democrats are still negotiating on what a pared-down version of the For the People Act, a sweeping bill Republicans blocked earlier this year, would look like, Schumer effectively teed up a placeholder bill on Wednesday morning.
A group of Democrats…have been working behind the scenes to try to craft a narrower bill that could win over all 50 Democratic senators. The idea is that Democrats will have their new legislation worked out by the time they return to Washington, D.C. next month and could swap it in…
It’s expected to incorporate a framework offered by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who outlined for his colleagues earlier this year what he could and couldn’t support in an election reform bill.
Manchin, speaking from the Senate floor early Wednesday morning, reiterated that he doesn’t support the For the People Act, which he has warned is too broad, without changes.
Washington Post: Senate adjourns until September without advancing voting rights legislation
By Mike DeBonis
But the path to enactment of federal voting standards appears no clearer now than it did in June, when Republican senators blocked consideration of a sweeping elections, ethics and campaign finance legislation known as the For The People Act.
Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called the legislation a “ridiculous, go-nowhere bill” written to advantage Democrats over Republicans. Democrats, he said, should expect no different result in the future.
“This isn’t going to work,” McConnell said. “It isn’t going to work tonight. And it isn’t going to work when we get back.” …
Schumer also sought Wednesday to bring two additional voting-related bills to the Senate floor — a measure that would require greater transparency from so-called “dark money” groups that engage in political advocacy but do not have to reveal their donors, and a bill that would outlaw partisan redistricting by mandating that states engaged a nonpartisan commission to draw congressional lines. Conducting votes on those bills would have required unanimous consent from all 100 senators, and Cruz objected to both.
Voting rights advocates are now counting on pressure to mount on the senators who have defended the filibuster — most prominently, Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) — now that Republicans have blocked narrower legislation.
The Atlantic: Pay People to Vote
By Jonathan S. Gould and Nicholas Stephanopoulos
Democrats are already making use of reconciliation to address infrastructure, health care, education, climate change, and immigration. Election reform belongs on this list too…
It’s true that many needed election reforms—including the stuck democracy bills—are ineligible for reconciliation…
[But] monetary carrots and sticks that reshape actors’ incentives can be very much in…
[A] robust system of public financing could make candidates less dependent on big donors. A proposal for such a system already exists in the For the People Act, and could be cleaved off from the bill’s regulatory provisions. Under this program, participating candidates would receive six federal dollars for each private dollar that’s given to them (for contributions up to $200). In return, they would forswear all other contributions and expenditures. As a result, these politicians would be less beholden to private funders and more responsive to their constituents. At least, that’s the program’s hope…
[This] could likely be achieved through reconciliation.
The Courts
National Review: Washington D.C.’s Free-Speech Double Standard Blesses BLM but Punishes Pro-Lifers
By Elissa Graves
It’s been a year now since Washington, D.C., officials ordered the arrest of two young people for doing what the city itself was encouraging people of all ages to do — paint political slogans in the street…
Many Washington officials, including Mayor Muriel Bowser, were happy to throw verbal gasoline on the fires — allowing, encouraging, and endorsing BLM commotions and turbulence throughout the city, including the designation of a “Black Lives Matter Plaza” in front of the White House, the commissioning of a mural celebrating “Black Lives Matter,” and permitting “Defund the Police” messages and graffiti on major streets.
The officials’ enthusiasm for such public expressions and free speech ended abruptly, though, with a request from pro-life advocacy groups the Frederick Douglass Foundation and Students for Life of America to hold a street painting and sidewalk-chalking event in front of the D.C. offices of Planned Parenthood…
Two of the young people, well acquainted with the First Amendment, proceeded with their chalking. They only managed the first two or three letters of their intended message, “Black Preborn Lives Matter,” before being arrested…
The resulting legal case is making its glacial way through the system. FDF and SFLA have filed suit against the city, saying their free speech has been circumscribed and curtailed by officials’ double standard. The city, in turn, has asked that the case be dismissed. A judge is weighing that possibility.
Free Speech
The Dispatch (“Advisory Opinions” Podcast): Fact, Fiction, and the Fight
Hosted by David French and Sarah Isgur
In this episode, David and Sarah continue their August tradition of looking outside the world of legal nerdery with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and author of the book The Constitution of Knowledge. Rauch has been warning about the dangers to free speech for a long time. What is the state of free speech? And how much of a threat is illiberalism?
Online Speech Platforms
New York Times: We Research Misinformation on Facebook. It Just Disabled Our Accounts.
By Laura Edelson and Damon McCoy
Our team at N.Y.U.’s Center for Cybersecurity has been studying Facebook’s platform for three years. Last year, we deployed a browser extension we developed called Ad Observer that allows users to voluntarily share information with us about ads that Facebook shows them. It is this tool that has raised the ire of Facebook and that it pointed to when it disabled our accounts…
In the course of our overall research, we’ve been able to demonstrate that extreme, unreliable news sources get more “engagement” — that is, user interaction — on Facebook, at the expense of accurate posts and reporting. What’s more, our work shows that the archive of political ads that Facebook makes available to researchers is missing more than 100,000 ads.
New York Times: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for a week over a video disputing the effectiveness of masks.
By Daniel Victor
YouTube on Tuesday removed a video by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky for the second time and suspended him from publishing for a week after he posted a video that disputed the effectiveness of wearing masks to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
A YouTube spokesperson said the Republican senator’s claims in the three-minute video had violated the company’s policy on Covid-19 medical misinformation. The company policy bans videos that spread a wide variety of misinformation, including “claims that masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of Covid-19.”…
In the video, Mr. Paul says: “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection.” Later in the video, he adds, “Trying to shape human behavior isn’t the same as following the actual science, which tells us that cloth masks don’t work.” …
On Tuesday, Twitter suspended Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, for seven days after she posted that the Food and Drug Administration should not give the coronavirus vaccines full approval and that the vaccines were “failing.”
The Media
New York Times: Dominion sues Newsmax and One America News.
By Michael M. Grynbaum
Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology company that became a target of a baseless pro-Trump conspiracy theory about rigged voting machines, sued the right-wing television networks Newsmax and One America News on Tuesday, accusing them of defamation.
Dominion, which also sued Fox News this year, argued in the filings that both channels served as platforms for flagrant falsehoods that devastated its reputation.
“The defendants named show no remorse, nor any sign they intend to stop spreading disinformation,” Dominion’s chief executive, John Poulos, said in a statement. “We have no choice but to seek to hold those responsible to account.”
Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages from each network…
Newsmax, which is owned by Christopher Ruddy, a Trump confidant, responded in a statement on Tuesday: “Newsmax simply reported on allegations made by well-known public figures, including the president, his advisers and members of Congress. Dominion’s action today is a clear attempt to squelch such reporting and undermine a free press.”
The States
WFAE: Bill To Raise Riot Penalties Clears North Carolina Senate Committee
By Bryan Anderson, Associated Press
A North Carolina Senate committee voted Monday to advance a measure that would impose tougher penalties on those who engage in violent protests.
House Speaker Tim Moore, the bill’s sponsor, said his plan will better protect businesses and police from violence and property damage similar to what he saw occur in Raleigh last year during demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody…
Though Moore’s idea received support from several Democrats in the House earlier this year, others worry the bill will have a chilling effect by making people less willing to exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly…
The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina opposes the measure, calling it an “anti-Black Lives Matter piece of legislation with several extremely harmful provisions intended to stifle free speech and the right to protest.”
