Free Speech
Wall Street Journal: Book Banning Bunkum
By Editorial Board
“Libel laws are very weak in this country. If they were strong it would be very helpful,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday at a press event, joining the queue of politicians who wish they could sue journalists.
In February 2016 as a candidate, Mr. Trump declared: “One of the things I’m going to do if I win, and I hope we do and we’re certainly leading. I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” The difference now is that he’s not even claiming he can change the libel laws; he’s merely griping about them.
Our media friends won’t admit this, but Hillary Clinton posed a far more dangerous threat to free speech when she made rewriting the First Amendment part of her 2016 platform. Like most Democrats, Mrs. Clinton wants a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision on campaign contributions and free speech…
Mrs. Clinton’s attempt to overturn it poses a far more tangible threat than Mr. Trump’s cease-and-desist letter.
All the more so because a Democratic Congress would likely try to rewrite the First Amendment, and states run by Democrats would ratify it. Republicans have shown little interest in changing state libel laws.
Mic: Trump criticizes “very weak libel laws” in press conference blasting “phony” ‘Fire and Fury’ book
By Eric Lutz
President Donald Trump launched another attack on the free press during a Camp David press conference on Saturday, bemoaning “weak” libel laws in response to a question about Michael Wolff’s explosive book on his chaotic White House.
“I think it was a disgrace that someone’s able to have something, do something like that,” Trump said of Wolff’s book, Fire and Fury. “The libel laws are very weak in this country. If they were strong, it’d be very helpful. You wouldn’t have things like that happen, where you could say whatever comes to your head.”
Wisconsin John Doe
Wisconsin State Journal: Battle lines drawn over John Doe
By Mitch Henck
The personal emails of conservative talk radio show hosts Vicki McKenna, Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling showed up on the computer hard drives of the former state Government Accountability Board in the infamous John Doe investigations.
“What do we have to do with campaign finance law?” asked McKenna, of WIBA-AM (1310) in Madison.
Republicans are fighting mad after the state Department of Justice released its report into why secret documents of alleged campaign misconduct by Republicans were leaked to America’s version of The Guardian newspaper.
The DOJ report says GAB investigators not only obtained, reviewed, categorized, labeled and organized private emails of GOP targets making campaign-related conversations – they did much more.
Filed away were more than 150 personal emails between state Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Brookfield, and her daughter, containing private medical information and other highly personal information.
Political Parties
Wall Street Journal: Moderate Voters, Polarized Parties
By James Taranto
“The donors are most ideological of all,” he says. In the 1970s and ’80s, “a big majority of contributions to congressional races came from individual contributions within your district, and now the money is coming from outside. Texas is an ATM for Republicans, California and Manhattan for Democrats.”
He adds that “30 years ago, an Ohioan Republican and an Oregon Republican would have faced very different primary electorates that run different kinds of races. Now, you look at their campaigns-they’re going to be the same. They’re getting their money from the same kinds of people.” The Republican in Oregon, a more liberal state, is likely to prove unelectable. For this problem there is probably no remedy. “The only thing I can see mattering would be unconstitutional,” Mr. Fiorina says-to wit, a law requiring that “all campaign contributions have to come from within the jurisdiction of the race being held.”
Then again, there is Donald Trump. He won the Republican presidential nomination against several opponents with more money and far stronger ideological credentials. His victory demonstrates, according to Mr. Fiorina, that partisan sorting “at the Bill Kristol level”-meaning among pundits and intellectuals-“is way higher than the sorting at the level of even the primary voters.”
The Media
Wall Street Journal: Scholars Get The Real Scoop on ‘Fake News’
By Allysia Finley
This just in-“fake news” didn’t elect Donald Trump. Democrats have argued that Trump voters were duped by fringe websites that traffic in misinformation, and that if those voters were better informed, Hillary Clinton would be president today. A new study by three political scientists-from Princeton, Dartmouth and the University of Exeter-debunks the theory. While fake news is a real problem, the most dangerous distortions are shrouded in a patina of credibility.
The researchers collected tracking data from computers of 2,525 Americans (with their consent) between Oct. 7 and Nov. 14, 2016, and analyzed their news consumption vis-à-vis their political support and knowledge. They sorted “fake” from “hard” news sites, defining the former by the propensity to publish intentionally fabricated stories such as “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apparent murder-suicide”-but not unintentional reporting mistakes, false statements by politicians or slanted or misleading reports that were not categorically false.
The researchers extrapolated that roughly 1 in 4 American adults visited a fake-news site around the time of the election. But stories on these sites accounted for only about 2.6% of all the news they consumed.
Candidates and Campaigns
Real Clear Politics: Biden: I Told Bernie Sanders Not To Accept PAC Money, That People Wouldn’t Trust You
By Ian Schwartz
In an interview with PBS NewsHour host Judy Woodruff, former Vice President Joe Biden revealed he advised 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders that he shouldn’t take any money from political action committees, “because people can’t possibly trust you.”
“My positions are a hell of a lot closer to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on some of the economic positions,” Biden said about a potential 2020 run for president.
“I sat with Bernie,” Biden said of his meeting with the Clinton rival. “I’m the guy that told him, you shouldn’t accept any money from a super PAC, because people can’t possibly trust you. How will a middle-class guy accept if you accept money?”
The States
Washington Post: Mayor Bowser and D.C. Council at odds over public campaign financing
By Rachel Chason
Pitting herself against good-government advocates and members of the D.C. Council, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said Friday that she will not fund a public finance program for local elections.
The council plans to vote Tuesday on a bill to create the program, which would allow qualified candidates for local offices to receive a base sum that varies by contest, with a maximum of $160,000 for mayor. Candidates could also be eligible for a 5-to-1 match on small donations.
Nine of the council’s 13 members co-introduced the bill, which is also supported by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine and a coalition of advocates who say it would increase the power of small donors and open the field to candidates not backed by big campaign contributors.
Bowser, whose critics say she is too closely linked with developers and other corporate donors, thinks taxpayer dollars should go toward the “many pressing needs” of residents instead of a public finance program, Bowser spokeswoman LaToya Foster said. Bowser’s position was first reported by WAMU-FM (88.5).
“It is not prudent to divert tax dollars from hiring more police, investing in housing or fixing our roads to paying for candidate robo-calls, pole signs or donor receptions,” Foster told The Washington Post.
Gotham Gazette: Cuomo’s 2018 State of the State ‘Reform’ Agenda Largely Repeats Past Proposals
By Ben Max
Action must be taken, he said, to address “the distortion and manipulation of our elections by big donors, foreign money and social media advertising and the alienation of our citizens.” …
“Foreign countries like Russia and big anonymous donors cannot jeopardize our democracy. Social media must disclose who or what pays for political advertising because sunlight is still the best disinfectant.”
“Disclosure must apply to social media the same way that it applies to a newspaper ad or a TV ad or a radio ad,” Cuomo said. “Anything else is a scam and a perversion of the law and an affront to democracy. Let’s stop this abuse, and while Washington talks about it and dithers, let New York lead the way and address this challenge and let’s do it this session.” …
He said that New York could “increase trust” through campaign finance reforms like closing the infamous LLC loophole…
Cuomo, king of the mega-donors, as The New York Times recently pointed out, says in his policy book that “candidates are incentivized to focus on large donations over small ones.” New York does have excessively high individual donation limits, at more than $65,000 for gubernatorial candidates. Cuomo writes that the only way to fix the situation is to offer matching funds for smaller donations, like the New York City system does.
Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Clashes over ballot measures, budget questions to highlight legislative session
By Dana Ferguson
Lawmakers and supporters of a since-repealed campaign finance and ethics law are set to clash again at the Capitol over proposals to reform the ballot measure process.
After mulling ways to implement pieces of the voter-approved law, lawmakers have said they will aim to block out-of-state input in the process and push for more information about the people who bring those proposals.
And at least one legislator, House Speaker Mark Mickelson, R-Sioux Falls, will carry a few of his proposals to the ballot in 2018.
Mickelson sponsored a ballot initiative that would prevent out-of-state groups from funding ballot measure campaigns…
Others said lawmakers should look to require additional disclosure for the groups that bankroll ballot initiatives rather than blocking some from the process entirely.
“That’s a concern,” said House Minority Leader Spencer Hawley, D-Brookings. “I don’t think the solution is to eliminate out-of-state funds entirely.”
Supporters of the 2016 campaign finance and ethics law said they would fight efforts to restrict the initiative and referendum process. And they too have a proposal to bring a second iteration of their 2016 measure later this year.
Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): California Prosecuting Man for Insulting Posts on Islamic Center’s Facebook Page
By Eugene Volokh
Of course, there’s nothing in the government’s logic that limits it to comments posted on the Islamic Center’s page, or for that matter on the Catholic Church’s page or the Westboro Baptist Church’s page or the Church of Scientology’s page. If the government is right, and the statute applies to posts on organizations’ pages, then it would apply to any repeated harshly critical posts on an NRA page “intended to annoy” NRA employees, on a pro-Trump page “intended to annoy” its operators, or on any other ideological organization’s page.
The “during the ordinary course and scope of business” exception might exclude consumer complaints, but the government’s theory is that this exception doesn’t apply to this sort of criticism that is “cruel and pointedly aimed at dismissing an entire religion and those who practice it” — logic that would apply equally to criticism of political as well as religious ideologies. Nor can the courts constitutionally conclude that harsh insults of the NRA are “in good faith” and similar harsh insults of Islam are not…
Laws aimed at preventing unwanted repeated messages to particular private citizens shouldn’t be applied to messages sent to ideological organizations (or to public officials). And this is especially so when it comes to annoying Facebook posts, which the organization can simply block.
New York Daily News: Cuomo criticized by government reform groups for giving scant mention to corruption issues in State of the State address
By Glenn Blain
Government reform groups criticized Gov. Cuomo on Thursday for giving scant mention to corruption issues in this week’s State of the State address…
During his 92-minute speech Wednesday, Cuomo devoted only a few moments to government reform issues, calling for early voting and same day registration, public financing of campaigns and closing the so-called LLC loophole of campaign finance law…
“The governor has advanced, championed and passed reforms virtually every year, including landmark transparency reforms that some of these very same groups are suing to overturn and keep their donors secret – so spare me the hypocrisy,” said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi.
The reform groups – which also included Citizens Union, the League of Women Voters of New York and Reinvent Albany – said they hope upcoming corruption trials will drive public attention and pressure Cuomo and lawmakers to adopt more potent measures, including strict limits on political donations made by government contractors.
WXXI News New York: Corruption trials in ’18 could spur reform
By Karen Dewitt
2018 will be a year of criminal trials for former associates of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as well as former leaders of the Legislature. Reform groups say they hope the lengthy court proceedings will spur lawmakers to enact some ethics reforms…
Cuomo proposed several reforms in the 370-page booklet that accompanied his State of the State speech. They include adoption of early voting in New York, same-day voter registration, public financing of campaigns, and constitutional amendments to impose term limits on elected officials.
He also backs a constitutional amendment to limit outside income for legislators and change the Legislature from part time to full time…
Jennifer Wilson with the League of Women Voters said while she’s pleased with the recommendations, she’s disappointed that Cuomo did not spend more time actually outlining the proposals in his speech. The governor talked about reform for about 1½ minutes out of a 90-minute address.
“I was tweeting during the voter part and the campaign finance part,” said Wilson, who added she regards herself as a fast typist. “But the time I finished tweeting, he was done talking about it. He was on to the next subject.”
Seattle Stranger: Obama Appointee Who Predicted Russian Interference Says Seattle Election Law Should Be National Model
By Eli Sanders
Ravel was “very pleasantly surprised” and “impressed” to learn that Seattle already has a law requiring exactly the kind of disclosure she wants to see from tech giants when it comes to political advertising.
“Seattle’s law is what I was asking for,” Ravel told me by phone late last week.
She called Seattle’s regulation, which dates to the 1970s, “really forward-thinking,” and she added that she hopes increased awareness of this city’s law “will ultimately lead to local entities throughout the country enacting something similar.”
As I’ve reported in recent weeks, Facebook and Google are not currently complying with Seattle’s law, which requires them to disclose “the exact nature and extent” of all political ads they sell in Seattle elections, as well as the sources of payment for those ads.
But Wayne Barnett, executive director of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, has told the companies they need to start complying. At the companies’ request, Barnett recently extended their compliance deadline into early February…
Ravel said she believes Seattle’s law-which is based on a nearly identical Washington State law-may be pretty unique nationally.
U.S. News: Ethics Code Proposed for Arizona Corporation Commission
By AP
An Arizona Corporation Commission member is proposing an ethics code that would ban lobbyists from buying food or gifts for commissioners and require those lobbying the commission for others to register with the state.
The Arizona Capitol Times reports that Commissioner Boyd Dunn’s proposal is a response to public scrutiny of the commission following heavy spending in election races for seats on the utility-regulating panel.
The draft includes elements drawn from state and federal laws from and other entities’ ethics codes.
Much of the ethical code is already required by law. For instance, commissioners must follow open meeting laws and cannot violate rules prohibiting them from communicating on ongoing proceedings. They also must follow campaign finance and public records laws.
