FEC
C-SPAN: Federal Election Commission Nominees Testify Before Senate Rules Committee (Video and Transcript)
The Senate Rules and Administration Committee held a confirmation hearing for three nominees to the Federal Election Commission (FEC): Shana Broussard, Sean Cooksey and Allen Dickerson.
The Courts
Courthouse News: Professor Challenges University Pronoun Policy at Sixth Circuit
By Kevin Koeninger
An Ohio philosophy professor punished for his refusal to call a transgender student by her preferred pronouns asked a Sixth Circuit panel Thursday to revive his First Amendment lawsuit against the school and its trustees…
Attorney John Bursch of Alliance Defending Freedom in Washington wrote the brief and argued on behalf of [professor Nicholas Meriwether] before the Cincinnati-based appeals court on Thursday.
Bursch painted his client as a compassionate professor who made several attempts to compromise with the university and his student, but told the panel of judges Meriwether is being “punished and chilled” for standing up for his beliefs.
Independent Groups
Salon: The brief, confused life of a super PAC scam that tried to pose as a breast cancer charity
By Roger Sollenberger
A new super PAC created to take money from donors in the name of fighting breast cancer asked the Federal Elections Commission on Tuesday to terminate its registration after Salon asked its founder questions about the purpose and intent behind the group.
The organization, called the American Breast Cancer Society, registered as a super PAC in a filing published Monday on the FEC website. Salon’s investigation, however, uncovered signs that the group is what campaign finance watchdogs know as a “scam PAC” – a fundraising vehicle that presents itself to donors as a charity but intends to keep most of the money it attracts from donors, or pay it out to affiliated contractors.
Such “scam PACs” exploit an ill-defined space between federal campaign finance and state charity laws: Political action committees operate outside of laws regulating charities, which, in exchange for tax-exempt status, must meet certain requirements – such as officially registering with state governments, publicly disclosing their executives, accounting for their expenses and so on.
Online Speech Platforms
The Verge: Facebook says AI has fueled a hate speech crackdown
By Adi Robertson
Facebook says it is proactively detecting more hate speech using artificial intelligence. A new transparency report released on Thursday offers greater detail on social media hate following policy changes earlier this year, although it leaves some big questions unanswered.
Facebook’s quarterly report includes new information about hate speech prevalence. The company estimates that 0.10 to 0.11 percent of what Facebook users see violates hate speech rules, equating to “10 to 11 views of hate speech for every 10,000 views of content.” …
Facebook insists that it removes most hate speech proactively before users report it. It says that over the past three months, around 95 percent of Facebook and Instagram hate speech takedowns were proactive…
It’s also ramped up hate speech takedowns: around 645,000 pieces of content were removed in the last quarter of 2019, while 6.5 million were removed in the third quarter of 2020…
Some of those takedowns, Facebook says, are powered by improvements in AI. Facebook launched a research competition in May for systems that can better detect “hateful memes.” In its latest report, it touted its ability to analyze text and pictures in tandem, catching content like the image macro (created by Facebook) below.
Washington Post: Facebook says it labeled 180 million debunked posts ahead of the election
By Rachel Lerman and Heather Kelly
Facebook on Thursday said it slapped warnings on more than 180 million pieces of content that were debunked by fact-checkers during the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election.
Between March 1 and Election Day, it also removed more than 265,000 pieces of content in the United States for voter interference. The company did not reveal how effective its labels are, except to say that when a label obscures a post, 95 percent of people do not click to see what is behind the warning screen.
Free Speech
New York Times: What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?
By Jessica Bennett
“I am challenging the call-out culture,” Professor Loretta J. Ross said from her home in Atlanta, where she was lecturing on Zoom to students on a recent evening, in a blue muumuu from Ghana. “I think you can understand how calling out is toxic. It really does alienate people, and makes them fearful of speaking up.”
That perspective has made Professor Ross, 67, an unlikely figure in the culture wars. A radical Black feminist who has been doing human rights work for four decades, she was one of the signatories of a widely denounced letter in Harper’s Magazine, for which she herself was called out. “There’s such an irony for being called out for calling out the calling-out culture,” she said. “It really was amusing.”
At Smith College, Professor Ross teaches courses called White Supremacy in the Age of Trump, of which the “calling in” module is part, and Reproductive Justice. Yet she tells students when they enroll: “If you need a trigger warning or a safe space, I urge you to drop this class.”
“I think we overuse that word ‘trigger’ when really we mean discomfort,” she said. “And we should be able to have uncomfortable conversations.”
Candidates and Campaigns
By Sam Rutzick
This election cycle cost almost $14 billion in spending, nearly twice as much as the 2016 cycle, the next most expensive election in U.S. history. Biden became the first presidential candidate ever to raise over a billion dollars, and there was more outside spending on elections than ever before. But how much of it was actually worthwhile? …
[W]hen it comes down to competitive races, money only does so much. There was a fear that in the post-Citizens United world, that money would be the deciding factor in politics and that corporations and their ilk could just buy seats. Sanders outright claimed that “billionaires can buy elections.” Vice President-elect Kamala Harris argued that it has “damaged our democracy.”
The evidence doesn’t seem to back up those claims. As important as money is-and it is important-having more of it does not grant an electoral fait accompli. And if you still want money out of politics, take Mark Cuban’s advice and spend your cash on those who need it-not on politicians who have plenty already.
Center for Responsive Politics: Unprecedented donations poured into 2020 state and federal races
By Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in Politics
“This year saw unprecedented campaign finance trends in virtually every way,” said Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in Politics. “For starters, elections were more expensive. But donor engagement patterns changed as well. At the state level, out-of-state contributions from individuals began significantly favoring Democrats. Small donors to state candidates continued to play a modest role but edged up slightly for Democratic state candidates. And a significant trend of increased female donor participation occurred, largely because of an increase in women giving to Republican state candidates.” …
Small donors gave a total of $1.8 billion to federal candidates through mid-October, three times as much as they contributed through the entirety of the 2016 cycle. Overall, small donors accounted for 27 percent of contributions to federal candidates in the 2020 cycle. That’s up from around 21 percent in 2016 and 19 percent in 2012…
“2020 is the cycle where we really see the potential for small donor engagement on full display,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. “Moving forward, the question for many will be whether this intense interest from small-dollar donors will be maintained in a post-Trump era. Another question is whether the parties will seek to redirect small donors, especially given that the historic surge in small donations to Donald Trump and to Democrats in competitive Senate races was not matched by success at the ballot box.”
The States
Mount Pleasant Daily Voice: School District In Westchester Defends Ban On Staff Wearing Blue, Black Lives Matter Symbols
By Zak Failla
A Westchester school district is standing behind a new policy that bars staff members from wearing symbols that represent political speech.
The Pelham Board of Education held a meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 18 to address rising tensions that have arisen from Schools Superintendent Cheryl Champ’s decision to ban staff members from wearing anything that pertains to either the Black Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter movements while on the job.
Champ implemented the new policy after some staff members wore masks and other clothes that featured the Thin Blue Line Flag…
According to Champ, some students saw the symbol as threatening, causing them to feel unsafe in school buildings…
The issue started with Blue Lives Matter, but then Champ met with some staff members who expressed concern that the argument was one-sided. That conversation led to the district to implement the new policy banning all political speech…
Officials noted that students have not been instructed or asked not to wear any clothing or masks that have been at the center of the controversy.
