In the News
Philanthropy Roundtable: New York Legislature Takes Steps to Protect Identities of Donors
By Megan Schmidt
Late last year the New York legislature took an important step in defending the privacy of donors.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed Senate Bill 4817A into law, which prohibits the attorney general from releasing nonprofit donor lists and exempts those lists from public records requests. This is a small victory in the Empire State, where the current administration has increasingly pushed for stricter donor disclosure under the guise of “transparency”…
The fight for free speech and donor disclosure has also been taken to court in New York. In 2018, Philanthropy Roundtable, along with the Institute for Free Speech and Alliance for Justice, filed an amicus brief in Citizens Union v. New York. Led by Citizens Union of the city of New York, the attorney general was taken to court for violating the First Amendment rights of nonprofit and charitable corporations. We argued the law in general was overbroad and the term “covered communications” was too vague.
New from the Institute for Free Speech
Lawsuit Says Colorado’s Campaign Contribution Limits Violate First Amendment
The nation’s most restrictive limit on donations to legislative candidates just landed in federal court. In a lawsuit filed late Friday, two Colorado candidates and a citizen who wishes to support candidates challenged Colorado’s limits on individual donors as unconstitutionally low.
“Colorado’s limits violate the First Amendment because they prevent candidates and their supporters from speaking effectively,” said Institute for Free Speech Senior Attorney and Deputy Vice President for Litigation Owen Yeates…
In addition to setting its limits too low, Colorado law punishes candidates who choose to fully exercise their right to promote their campaigns. Candidates who agree to limit their campaign spending are permitted to raise contributions twice the size of opponents who refuse. This scheme to punish candidates for promoting their campaigns to the fullest is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Davis v. FEC.
The plaintiffs in the case are 2022 gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez, state senate candidate and current District 65 Representative Rod Pelton, and Colorado citizen and campaign donor Steve House. They are represented in the case by Yeates from the Institute for Free Speech, a nonpartisan First Amendment advocacy group that defends political speech rights, and Dan Burrows, Legal Director at Advance Colorado.
Biden Administration
RealClearPolitics: It’s Not Government’s Job to ‘Root Out’ Misinformation
By David Harsanyi
After being asked by MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski about the alleged misinformation spread by the popular “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast and Facebook users, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy responded with a homily about how “we” must “root out” misleading speech.
“We” don’t have to do any such thing. Government officials have no role in dictating appropriate speech or lecturing us on what we can or can’t say. In fact, they have a duty not to. Murthy’s comments wouldn’t be as grating if it weren’t so obvious that the Biden administration has been pressuring Big Tech companies, who oversee huge swaths of our daily digital interactions, to limit speech and set acceptable standards.
You might remember that last summer, White House press secretary Jen Psaki causally informed the press that the White House was “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.” Can you imagine the explosive reaction from the establishment media if it had learned that the Trump White House was keeping a list of speech crimes?
The States
Colorado Sun: Colorado school board races are big-money affairs. A new bill wants to reign in donors with campaign finance limits.
By Erica Meltzer and Sandra Fish
House Bill 1060 would limit individual donations in school board races to $2,500 and donations by small donor committees to $25,000 per candidate…
The bill is supported by Common Cause and Clean Slate Now, groups that advocate for transparency and campaign finance reform, as well as by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, the League of Women Voters, Education Reform Advocacy Now and the Colorado Association of School Boards…
[The bill would not] limit how much candidates could spend on their own campaigns. Denver school board member Scott Baldermann spent more than $300,000 of his own money to get elected in 2019.
The Center Square: Inslee testifies for bill criminalizing lying about election results
By Brett Davis
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee spoke out in support of a bill that would make it a crime for politicians to knowingly lie about election results if those claims result in violence.
Senate Bill 5843 would make it a gross misdemeanor for public officials and candidates to purposely spread misinformation about election results in the state. Punishments would include a maximum fine of $5,000, up to 364 days in jail, and removal from office upon conviction…
“Politicians are not above anyone else who would incite violence by knowingly, recklessly, or maliciously spreading lies about lawfully-run elections,” Inslee said.
Opponents of the bill argue it runs afoul of the First Amendment’s right to free speech, but Inslee told the [Senate State Government and Elections Committee] his staff worked with legal scholars to produce a bill that does not imperil the Constitution’s free speech guarantee.
“I think this bill is really pro-democracy, in part because it is neutral,” he explained. “It applies to every politician, regardless of your party and is very carefully written to protect the First Amendment.”
Those legal scholars, Inslee said, include Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, and Catherine Ross, constitutional law professor at George Washington University Law School. She testified before the committee in support of the bill.
Washington Post: A GOP proposal targeting ‘negative’ U.S. history is cause for renewed alarm
By Greg Sargent
[A] proposed bill now advancing in the New Hampshire legislature deserves renewed scrutiny. It would ban the advocacy of any “doctrine” or “theory” promoting a “negative” account of U.S. history, including the notion that the U.S. was “founded on racism.”
Additionally, the bill describes itself as designed to ensure teachers’ “loyalty,” while prohibiting advocacy of “subversive doctrines.”
