In the News
Fox News: Ocasio-Cortez and top aide should be investigated for possible campaign finance violations
By Hans A. von Spakovsky
We don’t know at this point if the New York congresswoman has engaged in improper conduct. But she and her chief of staff and former campaign manager Saikat Chakrabarti are accused of serious charges in a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by the National Legal and Policy Center.
The accusations against Ocasio-Cortez are ironic because she has criticized the use of untraceable money in political campaigns and portrayed herself as a champion of campaign finance reform…
In addition, Ocasio-Cortez is a big supporter of HR 1, a bill with numerous new campaign finance law requirements that would severely restrict and burden political activity and speech…
As a former FEC commissioner who has studied the complaint against Ocasio-Cortez and Chakrabarti, I have concluded that there is unquestionably more than enough evidence to justify the FEC opening a civil investigation. And there’s also enough evidence for the U.S. Justice Department to seriously consider opening a criminal investigation…
As election attorney (and former FEC lawyer) Michael Bayes told me: “This is certainly an unusual arrangement, and there are lots of opportunities for violations. From funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign spending through LLCs, to running separate PACs to support her own campaign, this sounds like something the FEC should look into.”
Charles Spies, a lawyer and campaign finance law expert, told The Daily Caller that if a “campaign and PAC are under common control and the PAC was funding campaign staff and activities as an alter-ego of the campaign committee,” that would be “blatant” abuse of the rule governing PACs.
Former FEC chairman Brad Smith said the facts that have been revealed should “trigger a serious investigation.”
Daily Caller: Ocasio-Cortez Has Ties To A Dark Money Group
By Andrew Kerr
The group, Organize for Justice, is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, meaning it can raise unlimited sums of money without having to disclose the identity of its donors to the public.
Organize for Justice’s website states that it is the “sister organization” of Justice Democrats, the PAC that, according to corporate filings, Ocasio-Cortez and her chief of staff have held control over since December 2017.
Ocasio-Cortez has frequently decried the use of dark money in politics. During her primary campaign, she said dark money was an “enemy to democracy” and that it poses a “very real danger” of silencing grassroots candidates.
Organize for Justice was founded by former Ocasio-Cortez campaign volunteers in November, according to corporate documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. Justice Democrats’ executive director, Alexandra Rojas, also serves on the board of the dark money group…
Ocasio-Cortez never disclosed to the Federal Election Commission that she and Chakrabarti, who served as her campaign chair, controlled Justice Democrats while it simultaneously supported her primary campaign.
If the FEC finds that her campaign and the PAC were operating in affiliation, it could result in “massive reporting violations,” former FEC commissioner Brad Smith previously told TheDCNF.
The Courts
Politico: Court wrestles with law banning foreign donations
By Josh Gerstein
Three 9th Circuit judges heard challenges Wednesday brought by two men convicted of campaign-finance violations in San Diego.
Lawyers for political consultant Ravneet Singh and Mexican businessman Jose Azano contended in legal briefs that the federal law banning campaign donations by foreigners is unconstitutional when applied to non-federal elections, at least with respect to foreigners who have significant ties to the U.S. …
While a number of localities allow some foreigners to vote in local elections,[Assistant U.S. Attorney Helen Hong] said Congress could put an end to that at any time, if it wished…
“What’s the limits of their power?” Judge Andrew Hurwitz asked, questioning whether Azano’s visa could have been made contingent on his taking some vow of political silence. “Could they admit him only if he doesn’t criticize President Trump?”
“No. Not in terms of his public speaking,” Hong said.
Hurwitz pressed on, saying that “for whatever reason” the Supreme Court has concluded that “giving money” is a form of speech. “We now have somebody who wants to engage in First Amendment expression when he comes in and the U.S. says you may not? What is that power?” he asked.
Hong pointed to one major decision that stands as an obstacle to Singh and Azano’s arguments: a 2011 decision from a court in Washington, D.C., that upheld a federal ban on donations by foreigners. But that ruling, written by now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, focused on federal elections…
[Singh’s attorney, Harold Krent,] said it was bizarre that foreigners in the U.S. have the right to write about elections or engage in street protests, but can’t donate money.
NPR: Police Officer Can’t Pull Over Driver For Giving Him The Finger, Court Rules
By Matthew S. Schwartz
In the sequence of events described by the court, a woman in Michigan, Debra Cruise-Gulyas, was pulled over in 2017 for speeding. The officer showed leniency, writing her up for a lesser violation known as a nonmoving violation. As she drove away, apparently insufficiently appreciative of the officer’s gesture, Cruise-Gulyas made a certain gesture of her own. Or as the court put it, “she made an all-too-familiar gesture at [Officer Matthew] Minard with her hand and without four of her fingers showing.”
Minard was not amused. He pulled her over again and rewrote the ticket for speeding. Cruise-Gulyas sued, arguing she had a First Amendment right to wiggle whatever finger she wanted at the police.
In a ruling this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit agreed. “Fits of rudeness or lack of gratitude may violate the Golden Rule,” wrote Judge Jeffrey Sutton for the 3-0 panel. “But that doesn’t make them illegal or for that matter punishable.”
And once the first stop ended, Minard needed a legitimate reason to pull the driver over again. Detaining her without one constituted an “unreasonable seizure” in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the court said. “Cruise-Gulyas did not break any law that would justify the second stop and at most was exercising her free speech rights,” the court wrote.
It is well-settled that what Cruise-Gulyas did is protected by the Constitution, the court said. “Any reasonable officer would know that a citizen who raises her middle finger engages in speech protected by the First Amendment,” Sutton wrote.
Lafayette Journal & Courier: Right to Life ad, rejected by Lafayette’s CityBus, returns after federal lawsuit
By Dave Bangert
According to court documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court, CityBus agreed to run Tippecanoe County Right to Life’s 2-by-8-foot placard – featuring the progression of a fetus to a newborn – on a bus for up to 16 months.
CityBus also agreed to change its policy about what sort of ads it will accept, barring most non-commercial advocacy, public service announcements and political advertising, including ads for individual candidates for election.
“We’re very thankful for the result,” Samuel Green, an Arizona-based lawyer who helped represent Tippecanoe County Right to Life, said Monday evening.
Green is part of Alliance Defending Freedom, a Scottsdale, Arizona, that takes on cases defending “religious freedom, sanctity of life and marriage and family.” …
Right to Life claimed that CityBus administrators, a week after the contract was drawn up, said the ad ran counter to a policy that prohibited “political campaign speech referring to a specific ballot question (other than candidates for office …), initiative petition, referendum or political viewpoint…
The lawsuit claimed CityBus had accepted other political advertising, whether from political candidates or League of Women Voters of Greater Lafayette’s calls for voter participation…
Specifically, the new CityBus policy says it will display advertisements that “propose, promote or solicit the sale, rent, lease, license, distribution or availability of, or some other commercial transaction concerning goods, products, services or events for the advertiser’s commercial or proprietary interest, or more generally promote an entity that engages in such activities, regardless of whether the advertiser is for-profit or not-for-profit.”
H.R. 1
Daily Caller: Pelosi Says She Personally Supports Lowering The Voting Age To 16
By Kerry Picket
The ACLU, pointing to the DISCLOSE section of the bill, said it would “unconstitutionally infringe the freedoms of speech and association.” That section requires the disclosure of “names and addresses of donors who gave $10,000 or more to organizations that engage in ‘campaign-related disbursements,’ which includes electioneering communications and independent expenditures.”
“I disagree with the ACLU on this. In terms of legislation, we couldn’t be prouder of H.R. 1.” Pelosi said when asked by the Caller about the ACLU’s concerns. “This is about reducing the role of big dark special interest money in politics and empowering small donors. It’s about ending voter suppression. It’s about making re-districting fairer. It’s really a source of joy and hope to so many people in the country.”
FEC
Center for Responsive Politics: Shining a light on recent transparency reforms – did they work?
By Lucas Robinson
After a federal court ruling, the FEC issued a press release detailing new guidance for independent expenditures by groups like 501(c)(4) nonprofits that are not traditional political committees. The new guidance requires groups that spend more than $250 advocating for or against candidates to disclose every donor who gave the group more than $200 for “political purposes” during that year.
Yet Erin Chlopak, director of campaign finance strategy for the Campaign Legal Center, said the FEC should further clarify what amounts to “political purposes,” as outside groups are manipulating the vague definition to not disclose their donors while funneling “millions of dollars” into elections, Chlopak said…
Majority Forward, the largest dark money spender in 2018, linked to the Democrat-led Senate Majority PAC, argued it “does not accept contributions earmarked for a specific political purpose,” and therefore does not report who finances the millions of dollars it is already putting towards the 2020 elections.
The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC against the conservative group Heritage Action for America over lack of donor disclosure…
Chlopak said while Campaign Legal Center sees the FEC press release on the guidelines as “an improvement,” the commission should issue further regulation clarifying the disclosure requirements for outside groups.
“The content of the press release essentially restates what the court decision says rather than really providing further guidance, an explanation of how to comply with the requirement itself,” Chlopak said. “The FEC is a regulatory agency… and a press release is not a regulatory interpretation.”
Online Speech Platforms
The Federalist: 5 Reasons Elizabeth Warren’s Plan To Break Up Big Tech Is Bad For America
By David Harsanyi
A person doesn’t need to be exceptionally perceptive to notice that Warren’s grievance regarding a “single censor” shutting down debate on social media is weakened by the fact that she went to a competing social media platform to perpetuate the debate. Nor did it take much work to find out that virtually every major news site had thoroughly covered her plan to break up Big Tech. Her own tweet debunks the notion that a sole social media site can dominate news coverage or a national debate.
Then again, Warren’s admission that her power grab “starts” with the notion of regulating free expression is quite telling. Conservatives who believe Warren’s plan to break up tech companies will mitigate the bad behavior of those platforms are fooling themselves. Taking Instagram away from Facebook would do nothing to induce the social media giant to embrace truly open debate. However, forcing a private entity to run ads that call for its own destruction-which seems to be what Warren is suggesting and Cruz is endorsing-is an unambiguous attack on free expression. I’m unsure what part of the Constitution has persuaded Cruz to believe otherwise.
Even if we conceded for the sake of argument that government should have a role in forcing social media to allow all expression, does anyone really believe that a left-wing administration would use the state’s newfound influence to do so? Everyone saw how easily bureaucrats at the Internal Revenue Service, whose mission now includes okaying campaign speech, could abuse its power.
From “fairness doctrines” that dictate appropriate opinions to campaign finance laws that allow the banning of documentaries and books to laws against “dark money” that strip away anonymity; from health-care regulation to proposed banking regulation, there is no regulation that isn’t used by contemporary Democrats to further progressive cultural policy.
Trump Administration
Detroit News: Trump is not the fix for free speech on the quad
By Ingrid Jacques
Popular conservative brand Ben Shapiro made an appearance at the University of Michigan Tuesday. The sold-out event was hosted by Young America’s Foundation.
And in typical fashion, campus liberals freaked out…
This is emblematic of the rampant intolerance on college campuses that led President Donald Trump to announce he would be issuing “very soon” an executive order requiring universities to support free speech…
[C]redit the president for shining a light on a very real problem. But that’s where his involvement should end.
“There are terrible environments at many schools, but there are huge dangers that go with any federal effort to police expression,” says Neal McCluskey, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom.
Trump indicated the order would apply to institutions that accept roughly $30 billion in annual federal research dollars – a more narrow impact.
Yet if Trump were to broaden his order to include any college that accepts federal funds, including the $150 billion in annual student aid, that would expand its reach to nearly every campus, public and private. Only Michigan’s Hillsdale College and a handful of others nationwide refuse any form of government money.
Last June, the Justice Department filed an official “statement of interest” in the UM case, arguing the university was in effect censoring constitutionally protected free speech.
Even those who are frustrated with the slow pace of free speech court battles acknowledge the First Amendment offers adequate protection. A presidential hammer isn’t needed.
“To have the president dictate what policy will be is an extremely dangerous way to do anything,” McCluskey says.
The States
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: Judicial-race bill pulled by sponsor
By John Moritz
Faced with concerns from fellow lawmakers, Rep. Jimmy Gazaway, R-Paragould, on Wednesday pulled down legislation that would attempt to expose who donates to groups that buy ads to influence appellate court elections.
Gazaway’s bill, House Bill 1705, cleared the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday with broad support.
But the next day, in the full House, there were concerns with the bill. Gazaway said he was willing to try to find an agreement to ease those concerns in the Senate, though he promised no amendments…
The bill would require the disclosure of donors by groups that spend money on ads in an attempt to influence the public’s perception of judicial candidates.
The bill is a response to years of negative ads being bought by out-of-state “dark money” groups in races for the Arkansas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.
However, some in-state groups, such as the Arkansas Family Council, have said the bill would affect their operations.
Charleston Gazette-Mail: Campaign finance legislation provides greater transparency
By West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner
It has been disappointing to see opponents of the campaign finance transparency bill disregard the new safeguards and transparency requirements in this legislation that address spending funded by unknown sources. Without these necessary enhancements, West Virginia will be left behind in categories such as electronic disclosure of third parties and public access to information about out-of-state organizations.
Under the campaign finance transparency reform bill, additional “dark money” will be brought into the sunlight and disclosed. Contribution levels will reflect lower limits than our surrounding states, and will still be 14th lowest in the nation for statewide candidates.
Many of the amendments that failed during session contained provisions that potentially violate the First Amendment’s free speech and freedom of association protections. Thankfully our lawmakers considered the full text of the bill and understood that the vast transparency and disclosure improvements will greatly benefit the public…
It is important for voters to know who is spending money to influence elections in our State, and the campaign finance transparency reform bill closes most of these loopholes without triggering a challenge under the First Amendment…
I’m hopeful that readers will consider this information before deciding about these campaign finance transparency reforms. And don’t just take my word for it. I encourage everyone to read SB 622 itself to really see what lengths our Legislature has taken to shine light on campaign finances in West Virginia.
93.1 WIBC Indianapolis: Proposed Law Would Discourage Free Speech, Says ACLU of Indiana
By Chris Davis
Fines as high as $100,000 could go to groups that protest in Indiana if just one person causes damage or trespasses, said Katie Blair, ACLU of Indiana Director of Advocacy and Public Policy.
“This will affect everyone’s 1st Amendment rights, especially those right now who are wanting to go out and make their voices heard,” said Blair.
She said she believes the bill is targeted to stifle speech, be it on the left or right, or any other kind.
“Laws are already on the books for trespassing and damages of property. So, it’s very clear that this bill is going after a person’s right to free speech,” she said.
The ACLU will be at the State House to protest the bill (SB 471)…
“Legislators are using protection of “critical infrastructure” as a guise to chill free speech. A person cannot lawfully be prosecuted for using truthful information to sway public opinion. That is an attack on our constitutional rights – one that the ACLU of Indiana will resist.”
KJZZ Phoenix: Arizona Attorney General To Rule Whether Anti-‘Dark Money’ Ordinance Is Illegal
By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services
Sen. Vince Leach asked Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich to rule whether cities can impose their own prohibitions on “dark money” in local campaigns.
Leach says the 2017 Tempe voter initiative should be overturned because it is in violation of a law he pushed through the Republican-controlled Legislature. That law prohibits local governments from requiring tax-exempt organizations from registering as political committees, even if they are putting money into races.
It also precludes any requirement that these so-called “dark money” groups identify donors…
“The state of Arizona always has the authority to protect the constitutional rights of its citizens, and no local ordinance may violate those rights,” Leach wrote in his complaint to Brnovich. He also cited a 1958 U.S. Supreme Court decision that non-profit groups seeking to affect the political process can shield the names of donors…
The Tempe ballot measure says any group that spends more than $1,000 during any election cycle to “disclose the original source … of all major contributions.” That includes the name, address and employer of anyone donating more than $1,000…
Brnovich is required by law to investigate when lawmakers allege state officials have violated state law. He is also required to issue his decision with 30 days.
His decision will also affect the future of another anti-dark money ordinance approved by 87 percent of Phoenix voters in November. That ban hasn’t yet gone into effect because Gov. Doug Ducey, who is required to review all city charter changes, has so far refused to give his approval…
If Brnovich finds there is a violation, he has to order the state treasurer to withhold half of Tempe’s state aid. He could also turn to the state Supreme Court to resolve the dispute.
Electronic Frontier Foundation: Critical Free Speech Protections Are Under Attack in Texas
By Joe Mullin
A bill introduced in Texas threatens the free speech rights of 28 million residents by making it easier to bring frivolous lawsuits against speakers and to harass or intimidate them into silence.
EFF has long been concerned about these types of lawsuits, called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPPs, as they use legal claims as a pretext to punish individuals exercising their First Amendment rights. That’s why EFF supports efforts to limit or prevent SLAPPs.
28 states have so-called “anti-SLAPP” laws, which provide invaluable protections to speakers exercising their First Amendment rights, both online and off. While the laws vary, they typically allow the target of the SLAPP suit to quickly get a court to decide whether the case can go forward, and often require the party bringing the claims to demonstrate they have legitimate legal claims. Anti-SLAPP laws also often allow a victorious target of a SLAPP suit to recover attorneys’ fees from the party who brought the meritless claims.
Without anti-SLAPP laws, plaintiffs could bring a meritless claim against speakers that they have no intention of winning-just to stop the speech or inflict financial stress by forcing those targeted by the suits to pay for attorneys to defend against meritless claims.
Texas has one of the premier anti-SLAPP laws in the country: the Texas Citizens Participation Act, or TCPA. The law currently applies to a broad range of protected First Amendment activity, including discussing matters of public importance or speaking at a government proceeding. A bill introduced earlier this month, H.B. 2730, would gut these and other important protections.
