In the News
Daily Caller: Democrats Are Looking To Make The FEC A Lot More Partisan
By Eric Wang
A frequent grievance against the FEC is its bipartisan structure. By law, no more than half of the agency’s six members may be of the same political party. At least four votes are required for most agency actions, including opening investigations, imposing civil penalties, referring matters for criminal prosecution, and issuing advisory opinions. As former Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston explained in 1976, the FEC was created this way to prevent it from becoming “a tool for harassment by future imperial presidents who may seek to repeat the abuses of Watergate.”
Despite this historical consensus for the FEC’s bipartisan structure, the Democratic House majority buried a provision in their recent 700-page H.R. 1 legislation to reduce the agency to five members…
H.R. 1 also would allow the president to appoint an FEC chair who could make important decisions unilaterally, such as subpoenaing documents and testimony and appointing an agency general counsel. The general counsel, in turn, could unilaterally open investigations without commissioners’ bipartisan approval.
The pretense for this radical restructuring is the frequent deadlocks among FEC commissioners. But there are several major flaws with this rationale.
First, critics argue that “by making the FEC an odd-numbered commission, it would have a structure like almost every other federal agency in Washington,” such as the FCC, the SEC, and the FERC. However, the FEC is the only agency charged with regulating partisan political activities, and therefore is the only agency where political parity is essential.
As FEC Commissioner Steven T. Walther – who caucuses with the Democrats – said, “there is greater wisdom in retaining the structure that exists now.” Otherwise, “there could very well be accusations of partisan motives” at the FEC.
The Courts
Courthouse News Service: DC Circuit OKs Payment-Plan Rules for Campaign Donors
By Brad Kutner
“Although an individual’s death terminates his ability to profit personally from a corrupt quo in exchange for his bequeathed quid, the donor’s surviving friends and family remain all too capable of accepting political favors that their deceased benefactor may have pre-arranged for their benefit,” [U.S. Circuit Judge David S. Tatel] wrote…
But in a separate opinion, U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory G. Katsas, a Donald Trump appointee, said contribution limits are unconstitutional as applied to uncoordinated bequests.
“Armed with extensive disclosure requirements and enforcement powers, the FEC routinely determines whether disputed expenditures were coordinated or independent. The FEC offers no reason why it cannot make the same determination as to bequests,” Katsas wrote.
He added, “Because coordinated and uncoordinated bequests can be manageably distinguished, and because uncoordinated bequests are not even alleged to present any corruption risk, the contribution limits are unconstitutional at least as applied to them.”
Katas was joined in his partial dissent by U.S. Circuit Judge Karen L. Henderson, a George W. Bush appointee…
U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas B. Griffith wrote an additional opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. He took issue with the fact that the donation rule “restricts general contributions while declining to restrict segregated contributions.” …
“In this way, the scheme’s exceptions loosen restrictions on those contributions that are useful to major parties but not to minor parties… it raises further doubts that the scheme is tailored to serve anticorruption interests rather than an impermissible interest, such as disadvantaging minor parties.”
Des Moines Register: ACLU targets free speech violations in Adams County after harassment charge for profane Facebook post
By Shelby Fleig
The ACLU of Iowa on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit claiming the Adams County Sheriff’s Office violated the free speech rights of a Red Oak man who wrote a profanity-laden Facebook post about a deputy and his actions at an outdoor festival.
The sheriff’s office charged Jon Goldsmith with third-degree harassment…
The charge was dropped later in the year.
On behalf of Goldsmith, the ACLU of Iowa seeks damages for attorneys’ fees and medical distress it says Goldsmith, 50, incurred. The ACLU also requests a judgment that the charge violated state and federal free speech rights, and asks the court to order mandatory free speech training for the sheriff’s office.
“This is really a classic free speech case, and we are very happy to bring it,” said Rita Bettis Austen, legal director for the ACLU of Iowa, at a Tuesday news conference. “We hope we will be able to protect our client’s First Amendment rights in this case and get a declaration from the court finding that the actions of the sheriff’s deputies in Adams County were unconstitutional.” …
“It’s not just about Jon and what occurred to him, but it’s a fact that a lot of people, we would suspect, in Adams County, are being told that they can’t criticize law enforcement officials,” said Glen Downey, a cooperating attorney with the ACLU of Iowa. “This lawsuit is to remind law that they can’t be engaging in that behavior, that they have to allow that criticism, no matter what.”
The lawsuit alleges that the county displays “deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of the residents and visitors,” by failing to train officers about free speech rights.
In doing so, it points to two recent arrests in the county: one in 2018 for disorderly conduct when that individual began cursing at a deputy, and another in March for abusive (epithets) and threatening gestures after an individual said, “f— you,” and “flipped the bird.”
Reason: The First Amendment Protects the Right to Work as a Tour Guide, Says Federal Judge
By Brian Doherty
Telling stories for money should not require a government test and license in a country with a First Amendment, a federal judge in Georgia has ruled. The decision came as a result of a lawsuit challenging Savannah, Georgia’s past attempts to force tour guides to pay fees, pass tests, and get licenses before taking people around the city and saying things to them.
Judge William T. Moore, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, in his decision in Freenor v. Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Savannah, issued yesterday, concluded that the city had offered no reasonable justifications for its tour guide licensing scheme.
Savannah actually repealed the challenged law back in 2015, after the Institute for Justice (I.J.) filed this suit in 2014, but the case was not mooted by the law’s repeal since the suing tour guides and would-be tour guides also sought compensatory damages for harms that the law caused when it still existed.
A press release from I.J. spells out the pointlessness of the unconstitutional requirements which Savannah first put in place in 1978: “Tour guides who wanted this storytelling license had to pass a hundred-question multiple choice exam on Savannah history-even if they had no interest in discussing history on their tours. For instance, some tour guides focus on art and architecture or tell ghost stories.” Along with the written test, licensed tour guides also needed to pass a criminal background check and to provide notes from licensed physicians certifying their fitness to work as tour guides.
U.S. News & World Report: Prosecutors: Michael Cohen Campaign Finance Probe Is Active
By Larry Neumeister, Associated Press
Prosecutors aren’t quite finished investigating campaign finance violations by President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer.
U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III agreed Tuesday to keep search warrant materials related to the investigation of Michael Cohen under seal until July 15 after prosecutors submitted a letter last week explaining why the probe continues. That letter remains sealed.
Pauley cited “ongoing aspects” of the government’s investigation as he directed prosecutors to identify in July what individuals or entities remain subject to continuing probes and explain any need for continued redaction.
Free Speech
Knight Foundation: First Amendment Vitals: Taking Gen Z’s Pulse On Free Expression And Inclusion
By Evette Alexander
College campuses have recently undergone a pivotal generational shift. Millennials have left the nest of higher education and entered the workforce. Undergraduates on campus now hail from the tip of the next age cohort known as Generation Z. They are the true digital natives born into an always-on world…
To better understand this generation’s emerging views on issues of freedom of expression and diversity inclusion, Knight commissioned mobile-first polling platform College Pulse to undertake a national study of more than 4,000 of these full-time, four-year degree seeking students. This research joins our longstanding efforts to study and understand the future of the First Amendment, and builds on previous college student surveys in collaboration with Gallup released in 2016 and 2018 respectively…
College Pulse asked college students if hate speech – defined as speech that “attacks people based on their race, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation,” – should continue to be protected under the First Amendment as repeatedly upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Nearly six in 10 (58 percent) of students said that hate speech ought to be protected while 41 percent disagree…
While a vast majority of students say it is sometimes or always acceptable to protest speakers invited to campus, 83 percent say it is never acceptable to employ violence to stop a speech or rally from taking place…
More than two-thirds (68 percent) of college students say the campus climate prevents them from expressing their true opinions for fear of offending their classmates.
Center for Democracy & Technology: CBP Letter Prompts the Question: Is DHS Criminalizing Compassion and Association?
By Greg Nojeim and Mana Azarmi
Authorities at the U.S. border are arguing that journalists who report on asylum seekers, and the lawyers and activists who advise them, are legitimate targets for investigation under 8 U.S. Code §1324 for the crime of illegally “encouraging” aliens to cross the border unlawfully. This alleged crime justifies the targeting of these individuals for surveillance, and may be tied to the search and detention of their electronic devices at ports of entry. That’s the message U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) delivered in a May 9th letter to the Center for Democracy & Technology, which responded to the coalition letter we sent the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about a pattern of enforcement activity that appears to target journalists, lawyers and activists associated with asylum seekers.
8 U.S. Code §1324 makes it a federal crime to bring in or encourage an undocumented person to come into the U.S., or to harbor, transport, or conceal such persons after they have arrived. There has long been concern that this statute could be used to chill and retaliate against organizing, political dissent, and the provision of aid to individuals seeking entry into the U.S. as well as those maintaining unlawful status in the U.S. The assertion by CBP that activists, lawyers, and journalists were targeted and harassed due to investigations of possible violations of this statute appears to bear out this concern…
While we appreciate that CBP responded to us promptly, their letter is devoid of answers to the questions and requests we posed. It fails to address key issues such as the training materials provided to CBP related to First Amendment-protected activities, the agency’s policy regarding encounters with journalists, and whether DHS communicated with foreign governments about activists, lawyers, and journalists in order to restrict their travel.
FEC
New York Times: Watchdog Group Files Complaint Over Donation to Trump Super PAC by Canadian Billionaire’s Company
By Eric Lipton
A campaign finance watchdog group filed a complaint on Tuesday against a Canadian billionaire alleging that he violated a federal ban on contributions by foreigners when his United States-based company donated $1.75 million last year to a political committee supporting President Trump’s agenda.
The complaint was filed by the watchdog group, the Campaign Legal Center, with the Federal Election Commission against Barry Zekelman, the chief executive of Zekelman Industries, North America’s largest steel tube manufacturer…
The contribution was made by Wheatland Tube LLC, a Chicago-based company that is owned entirely by Zekelman Industries, which Mr. Zekelman and his two brothers control. Mickey McNamara, general counsel at Zekelman Industries and president of Wheatland Tube, declined to comment on Tuesday about the Campaign Legal Center’s filing.
The Federal Election Commission will review the complaint and decide if it wants to investigate the matter.
Federal law prohibits contributions by foreigners to federal elections, including super PACs. The law says that a “foreign national shall not direct, dictate, control, or directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process of any person.”
Mr. Zekelman, in an interview last month, said that he left it to members of his corporate board, who are either United States citizens or legal residents, to decide on the donations. But he also said that he spoke with Zekelman Industries’s general counsel about the matter before the decision was made…
Mr. McNamara, the general counsel at Zekelman, said in a separate, subsequent interview that Mr. Zekelman did not play a role in the decision and that the company had complied with the law.
By Rick Hasen
You can find the advisory opinion here. It is unanimous, except the Republican commissioners would not have imposed the disclosure requirements or source limitations.
Congress
USA Today: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are parasites. Maybe they should disappear: Senator
By Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri
Social media consumers are getting wise to the joke that when the product is free, they’re the ones being sold. But despite the growing threat of consumer exploitation, Washington still shrinks from confronting our social media giants.
Why?
Because the social giants have convinced the chattering class that America simply can’t do without them. Confront the industry, we’re told, and you might accidentally kill it – and with it, all the innovation it has (supposedly) brought to our society.
Maybe. But maybe social media’s innovations do our country more harm than good. Maybe social media is best understood as a parasite on productive investment, on meaningful relationships, on a healthy society.
Maybe we’d be better off if Facebook disappeared.
Ask the social giants what it is that they produce for America and you’ll hear grand statements about new forms of human interaction. But ask where their money comes from and you’ll get the real truth.
Advertising is what the social giants truly care about, and for an obvious reason. It’s how they turn a profit. And when it comes to making money, they’ve been great innovators. They’ve designed platforms that extract massive amounts of personal data without telling consumers, then sell that data without consumers’ permission.
And in order to guarantee an audience big enough to make their ads profitable, big tech has developed a business model designed to do one thing above all: addict…
Let’s be clear. This is a digital drug. And the addiction is the point.
Fundraising
Politico: Bernie’s new approach to raising cash: ‘Grassroots fundraisers’
By Holly Otterbein and Maggie Severns
Bernie Sanders – who swore off big-money fundraisers and criticized Hillary Clinton’s fundraising as “obscene” during the 2016 campaign – is changing his approach as the scramble for Democratic campaign cash heats up.
The Vermont senator has decided to hold in-person fundraising events where donors of all means will be invited and the media will be allowed. He has also hired a fundraiser to oversee the effort, a position he did not have in his 2016 bid…
His campaign has dubbed the events he plans to hold “grassroots fundraisers.” They’re expected to have a relatively low ticket price, but larger donors will be able to attend and could potentially get face time with the candidate…
The Sanders campaign appears to be trying to both collect money in new ways, and push its online donors for more cash as it tries to keep up in the escalating 2020 money war. Sanders’ campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, said in a recent email to small-dollar donors that the average contribution so far this month was only $16 – not the typical $27 – and pushed them to give more.
“Our average contribution has been steadily in decline,” he wrote, encouraging supporters to chip in an extra $10. “Here’s why this is a hurdle for our campaign: For each $2,800 max-out check one of our opponents receives from a wealthy campaign contributor, we must receive 175 donations to keep up.”
