In the News
By Rob Port
North Dakota’s new ethics commission is a mess…
But the larger problem, at the moment, are rules the commission is working on promulgating which would place itself between the people you and I elect and their ability to govern our state.
The rules are aimed at conflicts of interest, and while that’s a noble cause, the way the rules may be implemented is hugely problematic…
The Institute for Free Speech, a nonpartisan group, has submitted a letter to the commission that, though it’s dense with legalese, is worth your time to read, because it captures perfectly how far off the rails things have gotten…
As the rules are written, if you made a contribution to a political candidate, and then later that candidate is presiding in some way over an issue you’re involved in, the ethics commission could throw a red flag and prevent that public official from doing their job.
The rules make no distinction between a $200 contribution or a $2,000 contribution. As the IFS points out, there aren’t even distinctions between direct contributions to a candidate’s campaign, or independent expenditures, which would be you, either on your own or through some group you’ve voluntarily joined, promoting a candidate through means outside their campaign.
If you spend your own money to put up a billboard supporting a candidate you could run afoul of the rules the ethics commission is proposing.
That, my friends, is downright un-American.
Congress
The Hill: Democrats urge DOJ to address ‘insider threats’ from candidates who deny 2020 results
By Mychael Schnell
More than a dozen House Democrats are urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to address “insider threats to election systems,” which they say are posed by candidates who are running to fill local election positions motivated by former President Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election.
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland dated Wednesday, the Democratic lawmakers said they are worried that those candidates may attempt to influence the outcomes of future races if they are installed as election officials.
“Unfortunately, many of the candidates seeking to fill newly vacated state and local election posts support former President Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen,” the lawmakers wrote. “We are concerned that this new cohort of election officials may be inclined to abuse their authority to directly influence the results of future elections.”
They pointed to “the recent resurgence of anti-democratic tactics among election officials in key battleground states,” adding that they are “deeply concerned about bad actors who may dismiss their legal obligations in order to secure victory for their favored candidate or candidates.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: Ahead Of Expected SEC Climate Rule, Whitehouse Calls For Increased Climate Lobbying Disclosure Requirements
U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Ed Markey (D-MA) today called on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to include a disclosure requirement for lobbying activities related to climate change in the agency’s anticipated new climate rule so that investors can accurately gauge their risk exposure. The Senators’ letter to the commissioners of the SEC follows the news that the financial regulator is planning to release a proposed rule next week that would require companies to disclose climate-related risks…
Full text of the letter is available here and below.
Free Expression
New York Times: America Has a Free Speech Problem
By The Editorial Board
For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.
This social silencing, this depluralizing of America, has been evident for years, but dealing with it stirs yet more fear. It feels like a third rail, dangerous. For a strong nation and open society, that is dangerous…
However you define cancel culture, Americans know it exists, and feel its burden. In a new national poll commissioned by Times Opinion and Siena College, only 34 percent of Americans said they believed that all Americans enjoyed freedom of speech completely. The poll found that 84 percent of adults said it is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem that some Americans do not speak freely in everyday situations because of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism.
This poll, and other recent surveys from the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation, reveals a crisis of confidence around one of America’s most basic values.
The Media
Reason: The Hunter Biden Laptop Story Makes Another Case Against ‘Misinformation’ Bans
By Elizabeth Nolan Brown
Another example of how combating “misinformation” may obscure the truth. It’s become popular in certain political and media circles to say social media must clamp down harder on false information. Some lawmakers have even threatened tech companies with severe consequences for failing to stop the spread of fake news. But the idea that these companies could ever do this adequately is laughable—something driven home by new reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Back in October 2020, the New York Post first reported on the laptop—allegedly left by President Joe Biden’s son at a computer repair shop and containing emails about Hunter’s work for Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The emails suggested Burisma was paying Hunter in order to get access to his dad.
The story was quickly panned by prestige media and denounced by Democrats, who characterized it as an attempt to make then-candidate Joe Biden look bad and possibly another attempt by Russians to influence a U.S. presidential election. Even mentioning it to criticize it was frowned upon by some on the left.
This narrative was so pervasive and persuasive that Facebook temporarily limited distribution of the Post story and Twitter briefly blocked users from sharing it entirely.
Now, The New York Times—which was critical of the Post story when it came out—has published a piece backing up many of the Post’s initial assertions.
Glenn Greenwald: The NYT Now Admits the Biden Laptop — Falsely Called “Russian Disinformation” — is Authentic
One of the most successful disinformation campaigns in modern American electoral history occurred in the weeks prior to the 2020 presidential election. On October 14, 2020 — less than three weeks before Americans were set to vote — the nation’s oldest newspaper, The New York Post, began publishing a series of reports about the business dealings of the Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in countries in which Biden, as Vice President, wielded considerable influence (including Ukraine and China) and would again if elected president.
The backlash against this reporting was immediate and intense, leading to suppression of the story by U.S. corporate media outlets and censorship of the story by leading Silicon Valley monopolies…
This disinformation campaign about the Biden emails was then used by Big Tech to justify brute censorship of any reporting on or discussion of this story: easily the most severe case of pre-election censorship in modern American political history.
FEC
Federal Election Commission Weekly Digest: Week of March 7-11, 2022
Revisions to FEC Form 1 (Statement of Organization). On March 10, the Commission approved revisions to Form 1, the Statement of Organization for political committees, as well as to the instructions for the form and an Explanation and Justification for the revisions. The revised form introduces voluntary provisions for registering independent expenditure-only political committees (commonly known as “Super PACs”) and hybrid PACs, which intend to establish separate bank accounts to make contributions and to raise unlimited amounts to make independent expenditures. The revised form would enter into effect 10 legislative days after the Form 1 Revisions package is received by Congress, barring congressional objections to the revisions.
[Ed. note: Read IFS President David Keating’s blog post encouraging the FEC to update the form here. Read IFS Communications Director Luke Wachob’s blog post about the FEC’s decision to include the form here.]
Candidates and Campaigns
NPR: The truth in political advertising: ‘You’re allowed to lie’
By Domenico Montanaro
Some have called for a “neutral government regulator” to oversee political speech [in advertising], but there’s no broad, serious movement in Congress for something like that.
In fact, various courts have repeatedly upheld the First Amendment right of candidates to essentially say what they want on federally regulated broadcast channels…
When it comes to digital advertising, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have wide latitude to ban ads, and there are essentially no federal rules, as these regulations (or lack thereof) were written before the digital age.
Some in Congress have been trying to add more disclosures to online political advertising, but one effort, the Honest Ads Act, has gone nowhere.
Wheeler, who also advocates for stronger disclosure rules, explained further:
Daily Beast: Honey Traps, Child Porn and Violence: Feds Bust Chinese Plot to Destroy NY Candidate
By Justin Rohrlich
A honey trap. False accusations of child porn. Unfounded charges of tax evasion. And if that didn’t work, then all-out violence might do the trick.
Those are the lengths the Chinese government was prepared to take to destroy the congressional campaign of a former Tiananmen Square protester now living in exile in New York, according to the FBI.
Details of the scheme are laid out in a newly unsealed arrest warrant affidavit reviewed by The Daily Beast, which demonstrates China’s global reach in suppressing dissent—in this instance, “to prevent the candidate from drawing additional public attention to himself and his political speech,” the filing states.
“The PRC government’s efforts to censor political dissent extends beyond the PRC’s national borders,” it explains. China often uses the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the nation’s foreign intelligence and secret police agency, as well as the First Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, to monitor dissidents worldwide, the affidavit explains, noting the cooperation of private individuals to help “influence, threaten and coerce” those targeted by Beijing.
The States
Port Allegany School District in Pennsylvania may have violated a student’s First Amendment rights by requiring them to remove clothing with the message “Let’s Go Brandon” based on the school’s policy of prohibiting vulgarity on campus. NCAC has written to school board officials.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which includes Pennsylvania, has declared that student speech about political or social issues cannot be banned unless it is “plainly lewd.” …
The “Let’s Go Brandon” message is not “plainly lewd.” Rather, it is “speech that does not rise to the level of plainly lewd but that a reasonable observer could interpret as lewd.” It is also clearly a comment on a political issue, given that it is a coded criticism of President Biden. Hence, under B.H. ex rel Hawk, the district is not permitted to categorically ban clothing bearing that slogan from school campuses.
