In the News
The Hill: Spending money in politics is part of our cherished freedom of speech
By Joe Albanese
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) recently introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow politicians in Washington to limit money that can be spent on campaign speech, as well as give taxpayer dollars to politicians. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has proposed a bill banning congressional candidates from receiving money from political action committees (PACs).
The latter is a particularly stunning attack on the free speech rights of groups of citizens, since PACs are highly regulated organizations that have been part of American elections since the 1940s and can give no more than $5,000 to a candidate. All they do is allow like-minded citizens to join together and pool their contributions in order to promote candidates or causes.
The proposals of these California Democrats would basically give powerful government bureaucrats the final word as to how much you are allowed to spend to express your opinions. Since controlling money means controlling speech, these efforts would greatly undermine the liberties of individuals and organizations alike.
Daily Caller: The Swamp Drain, By The Numbers
By Jack Crowe
There were 9,791 registered lobbyists at the end of June, the lowest number at any point since 2008, and special interest spending on lobbying reached its lowest point in the last decade in the second quarter of 2017, according to a Boston Globe review of the last decade of lobbying data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Trump administration’s legislative agenda has been marred by a failure to achieve a bipartisan coalition on major legislative priorities. The failure of GOP leadership to whip the necessary votes required for Obamacare repeal in early July likely serves as a signal to special interests that the legislative arena will remain resistant to major breakthroughs for the foreseeable future.
“There’s nothing happening,” Center for Competitive Politics President David Keating told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “The fact that nothing is really happening, no legislation is really going anywhere, which means that no one feels the need to ramp up. The biggest bill that came down the pike was the health care bill and nothing came of it.”
CCP
What’s the Value of “Outside Speech” Anyway?
By Alex Cordell
One such regulation that is particularly contentious is an aggregate limit on contributions from non-residents to Alaska candidates, groups, and political parties…
Thompson v. Hebdon, a case which will soon be argued before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, is re-opening debate on this issue. David Thompson, the plaintiff in the case, is challenging Alaska’s first-come, first-served out-of-state contribution limit – among other provisions of the state’s campaign finance laws – after he tried to donate $100 to Alaska State Representative Wes Keller, who also happens to be his brother-in-law. The catch is that Keller’s campaign had already reached the maximum aggregate limit of $3,000 for out-of-state contributions that candidates for State House can accept, so Thompson’s donation was rejected. Thompson had not contributed to any other Alaskan candidates, parties, or groups – nor did he intend to – but his one-time donation of $100 to support his brother-in-law was forbidden simply because he donated after too many others already had. As a result, Thompson and his lawyers are arguing that the limits impermissibly restrict freedom of association and should be struck down under the Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC.
Free Speech
WGBH Boston: Free Speech Banned On Boston Common: The City’s Ignominious Failure
By Harvey Silvergate
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides with utmost clarity against the government’s enacting any laws “abridging the freedom of speech.” The exceptions and limitations are few and narrow. The Boston Common Free Speech Rally – cynically or sarcastically or through an excess of politically correct caution dubbed by the media as the “Free Speech” Rally (note the scare quotes) – was a massive failure for what was widely deemed a test of the community’s First Amendment vibrancy.
Yet City Hall, police, and the media all proclaimed the exercise an overwhelming success. Why? Apparently because nobody was killed. So, the official test now for whether an expressive event succeeds in its purpose is not whether the speakers are able to say their piece, nor whether those who want to listen actually get to hear. The test is that nobody was killed during the course of an event where not a word was heard, where no political views were aired, where no debate took place…
Welcome to the Era of Trump, in which not only the President and his minions are frighteningly hostile to free speech, but where local officials, police, and news media, in a nominally sophisticated community resorted to the notorious form of First Amendment censorship known as the heckler’s veto.
Reuters: Controversial free speech rally canceled in San Francisco
By Dan Whitcomb
A free-speech rally planned for San Francisco this weekend that local leaders had urged residents to boycott as dangerous and “white supremacist” was canceled on Friday by organizers who said that those comments had drawn extremists and made it unsafe…
Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson has vehemently denied that his group is extremist or white nationalist, saying that he is not even white and does not align himself with any party or cause.
“The rhetoric from Nancy Pelosi, Mayor Lee, the media, all these people are saying we’re white supremacists and its bringing in tons of extremists and it just seems like a huge set up,” Gibson said in a Facebook Live broadcast. “So we’re going to take the opportunity not to fall into that trap.”…
San Francisco city officials including Mayor Ed Lee had lobbied the National Park Service to deny a permit for Patriot Prayer to hold its event at Crissy Field, which is under federal control as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Congress
The Hill: Nancy Pelosi is on her way toward killing free speech
By Jonathan Turley
This week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered a mixed metaphor as a substitute for our bright line rule protecting speech.
Pelosi demanded that the National Park Service deny a permit for the conservative “Patriot Prayer” event in San Francisco. In an interview, she said, “The Constitution does not say that a person can yell ‘wolf’ in a crowded theater. If you are endangering people, then you don’t have a constitutional right to do that.”…
Pelosi appeared to confuse the quote of Oliver Wendell Holmes in the Supreme Court decision in Schenck v. United States, which said, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” Pelosi also appears unaware that Schenck, which is viewed as one of the court’s most troubling rulings, was effectively overturned in 1969 in Brandenburg v. Ohio…
Ironically, Schenck is a case that should deeply offend most people. Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer were convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917 for simply opposing conscription.
The States
Politico: Scott backs Corcoran’s push to eliminate public campaign financing
By Matt Dixon
Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday he is supporting House Speaker Richard Corcoran’s proposal to abolish the state’s public campaign financing system.
“Governor Scott believes that taxpayers should not be asked to fund political campaigns,” McKinley Lewis, a spokesman for Scott, told Politico Florida.
On Wednesday, Corcoran and state Rep. Jim Boyd (R-Bradenton) sent a letter to the Constitution Revision Commission asking it to recommend abolishing the state’s public campaign finance system. The CRC meets once every 20 years to propose changes to the state constitution. Anything the commission recommends would be put on the 2018 ballot and would need 60 percent voter approval.
As governor, Scott made 14 appointments to the 37-member commission; Corcoran appointed nine members.
Under the state’s public financing system, statewide candidates who agree to limit their expenditures can receive taxpayer-funded matching dollars. Outside contributions of up to $250 are matched and contributions above that amount are matched to $250.
Palm Beach Post: Corcoran gets quick push-back on public campaign finance repeal
By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Corcoran, who is considering a run for governor, called the system “welfare for politicians,” noting that more than $10 million in public funding supported candidates running for governor and the three state Cabinet seats in the 2010 and 2014 elections…
Of course, Corcoran’s proposal won’t stop Latvala or Gillum from using public financing next year. If the Constitution Revision Commission places the repeal proposal on the November 2018 ballot, the change wouldn’t take effect until subsequent elections, assuming at least 60 percent of the voters agree with the measure.
Candidates running for governor and the three Cabinet seats in 2018 will not have to decide on whether to use public financing until June, when they officially qualify to run.
KTSP Twin Cities: DFL Doughnut Stand a Money Maker, But Some Say More Transparency Needed
A mini-doughnut stand at the Minnesota State Fair continues to raise money for a DFL political action committee without telling customers where the money will go.
The booth was the focus of Republican-sponsored legislation last session…
“You don’t know where the money is going from any of the booths out here,” said John Treadwell, a board member of the DFL political action committee that includes several local party units.
He said their booth shouldn’t be singled out.
“We are in business making a product, selling a product and actually what we do with our proceeds from the booth is really nobody’s business,” Treadwell said.
The booth has been in operation for several decades and has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for local DFL Party units who then decide which candidates to donate the money to…
The DFL group did make once change this year. They’ve instituted a purchase limit of four bags of donuts at five dollars each. Minnesota campaign finance law requires any purchase of goods over $20 from a political entity to be reported along with the name of the person donating.
Los Angeles Times: New disclosure of hidden California campaign donors faces a do-or-die moment
By John Myers
The basic elements of the “California Disclose Act” have been kicking around Sacramento since 2012…
Mullin’s Assembly Bill 249 seeks to ensure that more campaign reports of big donors aren’t limited to a list of innocuous sounding political action committees, each of which was just a middleman for the money.
“This is going to be, by a million-mile margin, the best campaign finance disclosure in the country,” said Trent Lange, president of the California Clean Money Campaign advocacy group.
AB 249 would also simplify the donor information displayed at the bottom of political TV commercials or broadcast by a speed-reading announcer at the conclusion of radio ads. The result would be the names of corporations or labor groups clearly spelled out, the kind of information that more easily helps voters decipher whose money is behind the message…
[T]he bill essentially exempts the kind of “independent expenditure” committees that raise and spend cash to influence the outcome in a variety of candidate races, money that can come in and go out in unlimited sums.
