In the News
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: First Amendment gives advocacy groups a right to privacy
By David Keating
Perhaps you want to limit the right of elected officials, like Eric Greitens, to raise money for advocacy groups. If so, tread carefully. And certainly don’t endorse new laws ensnaring groups independent of elected officials from forming and speaking out on public policy while ensuring their members keep their privacy.
In supporting privacy for these groups, the group I run does not stand alone. We stand with the Supreme Court. In NAACP v. Alabama, the court ruled that government can’t force nonprofits to turn over their membership lists. The justices warned that such disclosure “may constitute as effective a restraint on freedom of association as (other) forms of governmental action.”
In Talley v. California, the high court said disclosure requirements “would tend to restrict freedom to distribute information and thereby freedom of expression … fear of reprisal might deter peaceful discussions of public matters of importance.”
Such privacy rights related to speech also protect an independent media. Some elected officials want new laws to punish the press for publishing leaks or quoting anonymous sources. The media, including the Post-Dispatch, need to realize that the First Amendment gives it no more rights than citizens who form groups. Attacking citizen rights to free speech undermines the media’s rights to the same.
CCP
CCP Welcomes Research Fellow Alex Cordell
Prior to joining the team at CCP, Alex was a Policy Assistant at the Institute to Reduce Spending. She also worked on the election campaigns of Congresswoman Martha McSally and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. In May 2017, Alex graduated from the University of Arizona with a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law (PPEL) and International Relations. During her time at the University of Arizona, Alex was a strong advocate for First Amendment rights and individual liberty.
Upon joining the Center, Alex said that “the freedom of speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment is fundamental to the security of individual liberty and the maintenance of our robust and competitive democracy. Increasingly, political speech rights have come under attack from both sides of the aisle, but it is imperative that all forms of speech are protected – especially those that allow individuals and groups to organize and speak openly in support of or against the government. I am excited to work with CCP to protect the First Amendment rights of all Americans to ensure open and dynamic political discourse.”
The Courts
Ballot Access News: U.S. District Court Strikes Down Kentucky Campaign Finance Law that Let Individuals Give More to Democratic and Republican Committees than Committees of Other Parties
By Richard Winger
The law, sec. 121.015(3)(b), said that individuals could give $5,000 to a “caucus campaign committee”, which was defined as: “members of the following caucus groups who receive contributions and make expenditures to support or oppose one or more specific candidates or slates of candidates for nomination or election, or a committee: 1. House Democratic caucus campaign committee; 2. House Republican caucus campaign committee; 3. Senate Democratic caucus campaign committee; and 4. Senate Republican caucus campaign committee.”
Because the law specifically names Republican and Democratic committees, and gives them the ability to receive $5,000 contributions, the law is discriminatory. Individuals generally can only give $1,000 to a candidate for state or local office, so a $5,000 contribution limit for contributions to these Democratic and Republican committees is valuable…
Two of the three plaintiffs are Libertarian candidates. The third plaintiff is a Republican State Senator, John Shickel. Shickel did not complain about section 121.015(3)(b). His part of the case challenged another law that made it illegal for a lobbyist to give anything whatsoever to a legislator. That law was also struck down, partly because it is vague and, if taken literally, almost absurdly draconian.
Pacific Legal Foundation: The First Amendment protects speech that contradicts unions’ policy preferences
By Anastasia Boden
This week PLF filed its opening brief in the Ninth Circuit in Associated Builders and Contractors-California Cooperation Committee v. Becerra, which challenges a California law that threatens to cut funding to speech contrary to unions’ policy preferences.
The lawsuit targets SB 954, which changed the way employers can distribute money under California’s prevailing wage law. That law requires contractors on public projects of over $1000 to pay employees the “prevailing wage,” a pre-determined rate set by the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR). Contractors can satisfy that requirement by paying employees a combination of wages and benefits, including by donating money to “industry advancement funds.” SB 954 changed the law so that only union-backed industry advancement funds may now receive prevailing wage contributions. This threatens the survival of groups like ABC-CCC, which advocate against union interests and rely on prevailing wage contributions to fund their speech. Yet union-backed groups retain the status quo, and can continue to receive the same funding.
Supreme Court
CBS News: New high court challenge to labor unions follows 4-4 split
By Associated Press
A First Amendment clash over public sector unions left the justices deadlocked last year after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. But union opponents have quickly steered a new case through federal courts in Illinois and they plan to appeal it to the high court on Tuesday.
The groups say unions representing government employees violate the free speech rights of workers by collecting money from people who don’t want to join.
If the high court agrees, it could threaten the financial viability of unions and reduce the clout of labor, one of the biggest contributors to Democratic political campaigns.
The Supreme Court seemed all but certain to rule against the unions in a similar case — Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association — argued before Scalia died. That case, involving a California teachers’ union, was the first of several to split 4-4 while the court was short-handed. The deadlock left in place a four-decade-old practice that lets public-sector unions collect fees from non-members to cover the costs of collective bargaining.
Independent Groups
NBC News: President’s Twitter Account Should Not Block Users, First Amendment Lawyers Argue
By Safia Samee Ali
The Knight First Amendment Institute, a non-profit under the Knight Foundation and Columbia University, represents several Twitter users who have been blocked from accessing @realDonaldTrump after they wrote unflattering statements about the president.
The letter to Trump says his “Twitter account operates as a ‘designated public forum’ for First Amendment purposes, and accordingly the viewpoint-based blocking of our clients is unconstitutional.”
“We ask that you unblock them and any others who have been blocked for similar reasons.”
The White House did not immediately comment on the letter but the lawyers are prepared to go to court if the president does not heed their advice, said Alex Abdo, one of the lawyers representing the blocked users…
The lawyers’ correspondence comes amid the administration confirming on Tuesday that the President’s tweets should be taken as official statements, which bolsters the lawyer’s argument say legal experts.
Congress
Bloomberg BNA: Senate Democrats Press FEC on Foreign-Money Rules
By Kenneth P. Doyle
Senate Democrats are pressing the Federal Election Commission to strengthen campaign finance disclosure rules to prevent foreign money from influencing U.S. elections.
A recent letter from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and 16 other senators calls on the FEC to begin a new rulemaking based on a proposal rejected earlier this year on a deadlocked, party-line vote of six FEC commissioners.
The letter cited recent Senate hearings focused on foreign influence in U.S. campaigns. The hearings by a Senate Judiciary subcommittee focused mainly on allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, but lawmakers also looked ahead to possible future threats due to lack of transparency in campaign funding.
While existing law prohibits any foreign contributions or spending to influence U.S. elections, “there are current loopholes that could be exploited by foreign interests to influence our elections,” the senators’ letter said…
Republicans have accused Democrats of using the specter of foreign money to try to curb campaign money from U.S. corporations-money that tends to favor Republicans.
The Media
Argus Leader: Billions of dollars, First Amendment protections, at stake in ABC lawsuit
By Jonathan Ellis
South Dakota is one of 13 states with laws that protect agriculture from disparagement. State legislatures began passing the laws after a 1993 decision in Washington where a court rejected efforts by apple farmers to punish 60 Minutes for a story that questioned the use of pesticides on apples, said Dave Heller, the deputy director of the Media Law Resource Center.
BPI filed suit in September 2012 following a series of negative reports aired by ABC about BPI’s signature product…
Roy Gutterman, the director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University, said the laws were intended to intimidate and chill news coverage. He noted that the term “pink slime,” which was used in ABC’s broadcast to describe LFTB, was consistent with language used in the industry.
“The pink slime case is an affront to the First Amendment,” he said in an email…
ABC tried but failed to move the case from state court to federal court. The loss meant that it will be forced to defend itself in BPI’s backyard.
“It’s hard to predict what will happen in this trial,” Heller said in an email. “ABC is in the plaintiff’s home turf at a time of unprecedented hostility toward the press as purveyors of ‘fake news.'”
The States
In These Times: 10 Years Ago, Connecticut Got Big Money Out of Its Elections. Now Democrats Are Gutting the Program.
By Adam Eichen
In total, from 2009 to 2012, the legislature cut the program’s funding by 40 percent. Nevertheless, at $10-$11 million a cycle, the program kept the bare minimum needed to survive.
But in the last two years, CEP’s very existence has come under threat with bipartisan vigor.
In fall 2015, facing budget shortfall, the state Democrats advocated for the suspension of CEP to “save” money…
Within a few days, the Democrats rescinded their plan.
The CEP appeared safe. Yet, fewer than two years later, the Republican minority has dropped CEP from its 2017 budget altogether, and the Democratic majority wants to cut another $5 million from the program for each of the next two allocation cycles (approximately a 25 percent cut over four years).
