CCP
Steyer’s Plan to Challenge Trump is Healthy for Free Speech Environment
By Alex Baiocco
Independent of how you feel about Steyer’s preferred environmental policies, he deserves recognition for deciding that the way to combat activity he doesn’t like is to speak out and engage the public. What makes Steyer particularly worthy of acknowledgment is the fact that he specifically emphasized that he has no intention of using litigation to challenge Trump. Rather, he pledges to spend money “trying to present an opposite point of view and trying to get that point of view expressed, and communicated to citizens.” This is a perfect example of the appropriate response to speech one disagrees with: more speech…
Steyer’s response to an opposing viewpoint stands in stark contrast to the response of 17 attorneys general and their political allies to similar speech that they disagree with…
The legal proceedings are ongoing, but the message is clear: Under the name “AGs United for Clean Power”, this group of attorneys general will use its power to intimidate and harass any group that participates in speech on the subject of climate change that is not consistent with their own views.
Events
NYU School of Law Sidley Austin Forum
Vice President Joe Biden will deliver remarks at the inaugural Sidley Austin Forum hosted by NYU School of Law at NYU Washington DC. The day-long program titled A New American Political System? will feature a range of nationally known experts on elections and the law of democracy. Participants will address the evolving role of political parties, the state and direction of campaign finance law, changes in news and social media, and related topics…
David Keating, President, Center for Competitive Politics, will be featured on Panel I: The Role of Parties (and Third Parties) along with Benjamin Ginsburg, Partner, Jones Day, former General Counsel to the Republican National Committee, and MSNBC Commentator, and Richard Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at the NYU School of Law. The panel will be moderated by Rick Boucher, Partner, Sidley Austin LLP, and former Member of the United States House of Representatives (D-VA).
When: Thursday, December 8, 10:10 – 11:00 a.m.
Where: NYU Global Academic Center, 1307 L Street, NW
Reason: Can Free Speech Flourish in the Age of Trump? Nick Gillespie, Flemming Rose at Cato, 12/6
By Nick Gillespie
President-elect Donald Trump was pretty damn awful on the campaign trail when it came to free-speech issues…
The irony of all this is that Trump has benefited mightily from the much-and-unfairly maligned Citizens United decision, which involved advertising a documentary critical of Hillary Clinton and dates back to a previous election cycle. That decision and others related to it have loosened the amount of government control over specifically political speech, weakening the ability of the political establishment to direct the flow of money and messages…
[This] evening (December 6), I’ll join Flemming Rose, who literally put his life on the line by publishing editorial cartoons depicting Mohammad in a Danish newspaper, and the Cato Institute’s Kat Murti to discuss “Free Speech in the Age of Trump.” The event is free and open to the public (and will be livestreamed as well). I’ll recount Reason’s brush with federal subpoenas for commenter information (a classic chilling action) in the wake of a post I wrote about Ross Ulbricht’s sentencing for operating Silk Road. But I’ll be talking more about the need to revive interest in the Enlightenment and classical-liberal belief that free expression is not simply a byproduct of progress, equality before the law, innovation, human flourishing, and prosperity, but it’s very foundation.
Free Speech
Forbes: Oh, Oh — Trump Thinks That Flag Burning Should Be Criminalized
By George Leef
Criminalizing flag burning would just throw more fuel on the raging battle between left and right in America, encouraging those who instinctively resort to coercion rather than argumentation when they encounter people they disagree with.
Trump’s tweet also betrays the same mindset as Barack Obama, who repeatedly denounced another kind of speech that the First Amendment protects, namely political speech by corporations and unions. I’m referring to the Citizens United decision, where the Court held that free speech limits imposed by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act were unconstitutional.
Opposition by left-wingers to free campaign speech and opposition by right-wingers to the symbolic speech of flag burning stems from the same root – the belief that it’s all right to silence those who disagree with you.
Reason: The Future of Free Speech on Social Media Looks Grim
By Andrea O’Sullivan
Social-media platforms are finding it harder to mouth free speech platitudes (and enjoy the corresponding cultural benefits) while at the same time actively curating a sanitized media feed…
Of course, internet companies like Reddit and Twitter are private corporations that can run their businesses however they see fit. If that includes censorship, so be it. Users are free to seek or build a better alternative-as users of the still relatively-obscure Voat or Gab platforms have-or just stop using the service altogether.
Yet a social network is only as valuable as, well, its network. If everyone you know insists on using a certain service, you’re probably going to use that one, too. Even if you don’t personally use a particular network, if enough people in a country or planet do use it, then its policies and priorities could have a major impact on your life.
And then there’s the value of “free speech” on a conceptual level. If you hold free speech to be an ideal worth fighting for, you will push platforms to protect it, even if it is costly or inconvenient.
Tax-Financing
New York Daily News: Anthony Weiner busted for using campaign cash from 2013 mayoral run for personal expenses
By Erin Durkin
Disgraced ex-mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner was hit with $64,956 in fines Thursday for misusing campaign cash – including using it to pay for his personal phone – one of a slew of violations that got him hit with $64,956 in fines by the city Campaign Finance Board Thursday.
The city Campaign Finance Board voted unanimously to penalize the serial sexter’s failed 2013 campaign for a total of 10 different violations of campaign finance law.
The campaign will also have to repay $195,377.79 in taxpayer matching funds that it did not use.
Independent Groups
Washington Post: New pro-Trump group takes form, with Kellyanne Conway possibly at the helm
By Matea Gold and Ed O’Keefe
Senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said in an interview Monday that she is considering leading a group being formed that will provide “a surround-sound super structure” to bolster the new administration’s political and policy goals…
The legal structure of the new organization is being discussed by attorneys. If the group is formed as a super PAC or set up under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, it could accept unlimited donations, but 501(c)(4) nonprofits are not required to publicly disclose their donors. Organizing for Action, the nonprofit advocacy group that grew out of President Obama’s reelection campaign, is set up as a 501(c)(4), but it voluntarily discloses its contributors…
There is already one outside group that has positioned itself to serve as Trump’s main political flanking operation: Great America PAC, a super PAC led by former Reagan aide Ed Rollins and California GOP strategist Eric Beach. But the formation of a new group run by Trump intimates would likely overshadow that effort.
Trump Administration
New York Times: Million-Dollar Tickets to the Inaugural
By Editorial Board
The saddest aspect to the solicitation is that it marks a familiar quadrennial moment when campaign promises about banishing special interests from the capital’s inner circle are dashed. It must be noted that President Obama was the first to offer the million-dollar donor tier four years ago as he retreated from the reforms of his first inaugural, in which he accepted donations of no more than $50,000 from individuals and eschewed donations from corporations. (Obama fund-raisers offered the weak excuse that they had to solicit more widely in 2012 because the expensive campaign exhausted traditional donors.)
Thus does big-money politics thrive in Washington despite the sternest promises made on the campaign trail. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” he said last summer in accepting the nomination. Right, and a million dollars will get you an insider’s seat at the Trump inaugural.
Politico: Trump kids’ diplomatic forays rattle State Dept.
By Nahal Toosi
State Department officials are increasingly fearful that President-elect Donald Trump’s adult children will assume the role of freelance ambassadors, further blurring the line between their business affairs and America’s foreign affairs…
Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush White House, said if Trump’s children act as informal, unpaid advisers, financial conflict-of-interest rules and anti-nepotism laws probably won’t apply to them. Their business dealings, however, could prove a stumbling block – and not just for the Trump children, he said.
“There are a lot of business people who go around purporting to be speaking on behalf of the U.S. government or friends in government and it is hard to prevent that. The problem is that when they are the president’s kids, this can be taken seriously,” Painter wrote in an email. “There is a big risk that anyone discussing Trump business and U.S. government business in the same conversation or with the same people could be accused of offering or soliciting a bribe – e.g. ‘I want you to do this for the Trump organization – and I can get the US government to do this for you.’ That could be a criminal offense.
The States
Argus Leader: Daugaard won’t support funding for ‘democracy credits’
By Dana Ferguson
Gov. Dennis Daugaard won’t be shy about his disdain for an extensive campaign finance and ethics law when he has to explain Tuesday why he doesn’t plan to fund part of it.
Daugaard on Monday told Argus Leader Media that he plans to ask lawmakers to support him in opting out of funding a so-called “democracy credit” program that could cost the state close to $4.91 million…
Voters narrowly approved Initiated Measure 22 in November and it became law within days. Lawmakers and state officials have since said they hope to amend or repeal the law and have said parts of the 34-page law appear unconstitutional. Twenty-four Republican lawmakers and a conservative lobbying group challenged the law in court last month.
Plaintiffs in that case are set to argue Thursday that the law should be put on hold until the debate over its constitutionality has been decided…
Daugaard said voters were sold on the idea that the law would prevent corruption in government, but didn’t realize the extent of the proposed reform.
Seattle Stranger: How to Get Your Free Money from Seattle’s New Public Campaign Financing System
By Heidi Groover
Next year in Seattle, Mayor Ed Murray and City Attorney Pete Holmes will be up for reelection. Two citywide council seats-currently held by Tim Burgess and Lorena González-will also be up. If cities are more important than ever, then deciding who runs them is more important, too. What’s more: Several of these city races will, for the first time, test Seattle’s brand new public campaign financing system…
Last year, Seattle voters-hopefully you were one of them!-approved a new public campaign finance system that includes a small property tax levy to fund “democracy vouchers.” Seattle residents are now going to begin receiving those “democracy vouchers,” which they can then give to candidates to help fund their campaigns. All Seattle residents, whether or not they’re registered to vote, will be eligible for $100 in vouchers each election year, and the application process for non-voters officially opened this week.
