New from the Institute for Free Speech
Amicus Brief: Net Choice v. Attorney General, State of Florida
The Supreme Court has long recognized that states may impose factual disclosure requirements on commercial entities. Florida’s law does this by requiring platforms to publish their content-moderation rules, apply them consistently, and give notice and an explanation of speech suppression decisions. In addition, Florida’s law provides other beneficial consumer protection measures that promote free expression and individual autonomy.
But Florida’s law goes too far in keeping platforms from posting their own content, such as labels or fact-checks. Platforms, as much as their users, enjoy a First Amendment right to affirmatively post their views (as opposed to “expressing” themselves by disrupting or censoring the speech of others). Silencing one party’s speech is not typically an acceptable means of securing another’s speech rights. Florida’s law also veers into constitutionally impermissible content-based restrictions when it grants special status to political candidates, journalistic enterprises, and the Walt Disney Company. A clearer example of speaker-based distinctions that reflect legislative speech preferences is difficult to imagine.
The Court should sever the law’s impermissible provisions, but leave intact those core provisions that provide for disclosure, notice, and consumer transparency.
Congress
New York Times: Democrats propose a compromise voting rights bill.
By Carl Hulse
The [Freedom to Vote Act] is the result of weeks of intraparty negotiations overseen by Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, and was built on principles put forward by Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the lone Democratic holdout against an earlier, much more sweeping piece of legislation called the For The People Act…
Democrats hope continuing Republican opposition to a measure Mr. Manchin is now invested in as one of the chief authors will soften his opposition to weakening the filibuster, allowing his party to advance a measure they see as crucial to countering new voting restrictions in Republican-led states.
Politico: Manchin lobbies McConnell on election reform bill
By Marianne Levine, Zach Montellaro, and Burgess Everett
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissed Democrats’ efforts to rewrite federal elections laws on Tuesday afternoon. Sen. Joe Manchin met with McConnell just hours later to pitch the longshot bill anyway…
McConnell called the legislation “a solution in search of a problem” and promised that Republicans “will not be supporting it,” dooming its chances unless the Senate changes its rules…
“I work with everybody, I want to find out where they are at, what we can do, I’m working on the voting thing very hard and I’m out there talking to every Republican I can,” Manchin told reporters after the meeting. “I was seeing if there was a pathway forward.”
Still, the West Virginian’s entreaties to the GOP are unlikely to convince the necessary 10 Senate Republicans to sign onto the bill. The legislation so far has zero Republican cosponsors…
Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have repeatedly said they have no interest in scrapping the filibuster, even if it’s just for voting rights legislation, and Manchin said the topic didn’t come up in his meeting with McConnell.
Free Speech
Reason: Government Is Lousy at Protecting Civil Liberties, Say Americans
By J.D. Tuccille
Disappointment in government brings an otherwise divided country together once again, as Americans lose faith in the state’s ability to protect civil liberties…
“In 2011, 10 years after the terrorist attack, nearly two-thirds were willing to sacrifice rights and freedoms to protect the country from terrorism” finds a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research (AP-NORC) poll. More recently, “just over half were willing to surrender their civil rights and freedoms to combat terrorism.”
More remarkably, when asked about specific rights, the percentage of the public saying the government does a good job protecting them has declined sharply in the past decade. In 2011, 84 percent of respondents said the U.S. government did a good job protecting the right to vote; that dropped to 43 percent in 2021. For peaceful assembly, the number dropped from 75 percent to 42 percent. For freedom of speech, it dropped from 71 percent to 45 percent. For freedom of religion, from 75 percent to 51 percent… In fact, for none of the rights about which people were polled have the numbers done anything but drop in terms of people’s confidence about government protections.
Axios: More Americans know basic civics, due to hyper-political media diets
By Sara Fischer
An annual civics study conducted by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center finds that a more polarized society knows more about the basics of American government, and much more about the First Amendment…
- More than half of respondents can name at least three of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. In 2016, most Americans could only name one.
- In total, nearly three-fourths (74%) of all Americans were able to name freedom of speech as a right, followed by freedom of religion (56%) and freedom of the press (50%)…
Yes, but: A greater understanding of issues like freedom of speech is likely the result of an increasingly polarized debate in society over censorship and media bias, which has muddled some of the facts around the issue.
- To that end, more than half of Americans (61%) said incorrectly that the First Amendment requires Facebook to let all Americans express themselves freely on its platform.
- Similarly, nearly half of Americans (49%) believe it’s accurate that arresting the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters violates their constitutional rights.
Activism
Washington Post: We’ve reached the sad place where activism has turned into a reality show
By Michele L. Norris
Here’s the idea behind CBS’s “The Activist,” which is coming in October: Three celebrities will watch as half a dozen aspiring activists compete to see if they can impart effective change in one of three causes — education, health or the environment — during a network series with a five-week run.
The prize? The winners get to attend the Group of 20 summit in Rome this fall to meet with world leaders and try to raise money and awareness for their cause.
Anyone who has engaged in real activism may give this made-for-TV model a glowering side-eye. The contestants don’t compete for actual funds to do good works but merely for the right to crash an international conference and try to shake down world leaders for cash? Instead of a crown of glory, that almost sounds like the second circle of hell…
When it airs, I will give this show a look and report back. But I hope it won’t make a mockery of activism…
CBS, along with producing partners Global Citizen and Live Nation, is billing the show as a program that “will make you want to get up and change the world.” Then why not invite people to do just that? And put some real cash behind some of the ideas? That would be something worth watching.
Fundraising
Business Insider: The New York Times wants a Democratic political committee to quit making money off a fake newspaper front page
By Dave Levinthal
When supporters of pro-Democrat political action committee End Citizens United opened a fundraising email Monday, they were greeted with what appears to be the August 6 front page of The New York Times.
“IN A NEW AD, A DEMOCRATIC GROUP POINTEDLY PUSHES BIDEN ON VOTING RIGHTS AND THE FILIBUSTER,” a top-of-the-page headline blares.
One problem: the front page is fake. No such article appeared on the New York Times’ August 6 front page, or any of its front pages.
End Citizens United seemingly spliced the October 16, 1997, front page of The New York Times with an online-only blog item written on August 5 by reporter Nick Corasaniti, creating something derivative and decidedly not real…
“We plan to send a cease and desist for this unauthorized and commercial use of our intellectual property,” New York Times spokesperson Linda Zebian told Insider on Monday afternoon after reviewing the fundraising email.
End Citizens United spokesperson Bawadden Sayed said the political group intended to share news coverage of its new ad campaign with supporters using imagery “to give the context of the news outlet in which it appeared.”
The States
Independent Record: Right-to-work group sues to strike down Clean Campaign Act
By Seaborn Larson
A Montana “right-to-work” group on Monday filed a lawsuit to strike down the state’s Clean Campaign Act, arguing it contains a provision that violates political speech protections.
Montana Citizens for Right to Work filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Helena against Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan…
The group sent out 16,000 campaign mailers in 20 different legislative districts on Oct. 28, 2020 that distinguished the candidates in each race by their opinions on right-to-work laws. On Oct. 30, a senior advisor for the Montana Democratic Party filed a complaint with Mangan’s office alleging the right-to-work group did not notify candidates of the mailers distributed within 10 days of the election, as required in the Fair Notice provision, a part of the Clean Campaign Act…
According to the lawsuit, Mangan notified the group it must pay a $8,000 fine or his office would prosecute…
The group argues in its filing the Fair Notice provision is unconstitutional because it requires political committees notify candidates of negative mailers, but mailers endorsing candidates are not subject to the same requirement. The lawsuit asks a judge to strike down the entire Clean Campaign Act and prohibit Mangan from following through on prosecuting Montana Citizens for Right to Work based on the March violation.
