In the News
Daily Caller: The Different Ways States Regulate And Protect Our First Amendment Rights
By Scott Blackburn
To understand the differences in how states restrict citizens’ abilities to support their favored candidates and causes, the Institute for Free Speech categorized each of the 50 states’ contribution-limit laws and measured their impact on free speech. The result is the first of its kind “Free Speech Index.”
To those familiar with the politics of campaign finance law, the results may be surprising. Eleven states have no limits whatsoever on individual contributions to candidates. They include liberal Oregon and deep-red Alabama (both tied for first in the Index). They include the second most populous state, Texas (ranked 9th), and the third least populous state, North Dakota (ranked 9th). They include eastern states (9th ranked Pennsylvania), western states (1st ranked Utah), midwestern states (7th ranked Iowa) and southern states (1st ranked Virginia)…
Twenty-eight states have no restriction on how much an individual can contribute to a political party, among them liberal stalwart Washington (ranked 20th), conservative stronghold South Carolina (ranked 35th), and swing state Wisconsin (ranked 22nd). But West Virginia (ranked 49th) and Rhode Island (ranked 42nd) have decided to limit individual donations to parties to just $1,000. Massachusetts (ranked 44th) allows contributions from unions to candidates, but prohibits contributions entirely from corporations, while New Hampshire (ranked 39th) prohibits union to candidate contributions altogether and allows corporations to donate directly. Neighboring Vermont (ranked 21st) allows both unions and corporations to contribute.
Republican National Lawyers Association: Another Court Criminalizes Political Activity — Will It Be Applied Equally?
By Michael B. Thielen
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has ruled, in United States v. Benton (8th Cir. May 11, 2018) that three officials from Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign committed criminal acts by (1) paying an Iowa State Senator for various services, including his endorsement, through a sub-contract with a video production vendor and (2) reporting the purpose of the expenditure as “audio/visual services.”
The State Senator indeed provided “audio/visual services” to the Paul campaign by recording telephone messages and appearing on television for the Paul campaign. He also traveled for the campaign and encouraged support…
News media have reported that the Clinton campaign and DNC funneled money to the Perkins Coie law firm, which in turn sub-contracted with an opposition research firm, Fusion GPS, which in turn sub-contracted with a foreign operative, Christopher Steele, to perform opposition research about Donald Trump. The foreign operative reached out to Russians with Kremlin connections for information that might harm Donald Trump’s candidacy. The Clinton campaign reported the purpose of its payments to Perkins Coie as “legal services.” …
RNLA member Prof. Brad Smith noted that this decision could impact Perkins Coie:
“If I’m Perkins Coie, right now I’m a bit nervous about the reporting of payments to Fusion GPS,” said Brad Smith, a former FEC chairman and current chairman of the Institute for Free Speech.
The Courts
KOIN 6 News Portland: Liberty HS student files free-speech suit over Trump shirt
By Gabrielle Karol
An Oregon high school student says his First Amendment rights were violated when he was told to cover up a t-shirt expressing support for President Donald Trump’s border-wall policy.
Attorneys for Liberty High School senior Addison Barnes filed suit in Oregon’s Federal District Court, claiming that the school, located in the Hillsboro School District, suppressed Barnes’ right to political speech when administrators removed Barnes from class and told him he couldn’t wear a t-shirt because students found it offensive. The t-shirt, according to evidence submitted to the court, was printed with the words “Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co.,” and included the phrase “The Wall Just Got 10 Feet Taller” in quotes…
The lawsuit says Liberty High School assistant principal Amanda Ryan-Fear took Barnes out of class and told him to cover up the shirt because it was offensive to a teacher and at least one other student.
Barnes initially covered up the shirt and returned to class, the suit says, but then decided that he was protected under the First Amendment and uncovered the t-shirt. Ryan-Fear sent a security guard to the classroom to remove Barnes and take him to her office, where she threatened him with a suspension for “defiance.” Barnes was given two options – cover up or go home – and he chose to leave the school, which was treated as a suspension.
Supreme Court
CNN: How corporations won their own civil rights movement
By John Blake
In “We The Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights,” UCLA law professor Adam Winkler details how corporations waged a two century-long campaign to win nearly the same rights as ordinary people: freedom of speech, religious liberty and “personhood” — the notion former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney alluded to when he said, “Corporations are people, my friend.”
Romney’s declaration was part of the rationale that produced Citizens United, a 2010 Supreme Court decision that eased restrictions on spending by corporations and unions in political campaigns…
In an accessible and engaging read, Winkler shows how corporations took their cries for freedom, not to the streets but to the Supreme Court to become “the most powerful players in American politics.” …
Winkler recently sat down with CNN to talk about the book…
Congress
Daily Beast: Democrats Try to Thread the Needle on Russia in New Anti-Corruption Platform
By Gideon Resnick
Some Democrats are annoyed with the cable news fixation on every twist and turn of the Russia investigation. Others think the party needs more focus on the issue. But Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD), the chair of the congressional Democracy Reform Task Force, thinks he’s found a way to thread the needle.
“I mean you can basically say ‘Look, nobody should be interfering with our democracy, with our elections,” Sarbanes said in an interview with The Daily Beast on Monday. “So foreigners shouldn’t be doing it, special interests shouldn’t be doing it, big money shouldn’t be doing it. It belongs to you, the people. It’s your campaign, it’s your politics, it’s your government.”
Sarbanes, along with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), unveiled a broad anti-corruption platform on Monday meant to serve as a supplement to the Democrats’ economic messaging in the “Better Deal” platform. Riffing on President Trump’s own successful slogan “drain the swamp,” the platform is intended to fix the campaign finance system, strengthen ethics laws and facilitate better access to the ballot box for every American voter.
Internet Speech Regulation
Bloomberg: Facebook Brushes Aside Proposal Over Labeling of Political News
By Naomi Nix
News Media Alliance Chief Executive Officer David Chavern on Monday offered a plan that would relieve some news organizations of a new Facebook requirement for any ads they buy that promote their articles about politics placed in a public database alongside the ad information of political candidates and groups.
His proposal would involve creating a list of media organizations that are deemed credible and would be exempt from the requirement.
In an email obtained by Bloomberg News, Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, responded by saying the company would “take your suggestions to heart” but said the company planned to negotiate with publishers directly…
While Facebook wants to move forward with plans to label election advertising as political, some of the most politicized content comes from websites masquerading as news publishers.
To regular news publishers, any broad labeling of the news as political content would imply bias. But a solution that exempted certain publishers would put Facebook in the position of deciding outright what the real news is…
[Facebook] came up with a plan to disclose when news organizations pay to increase exposure of articles on politics, and store details about the demographics of who saw their ads and how much was spent in an archive that includes ads for politicians and political groups. The articles news organizations promoted would include labels specifying “paid for by,” just like the political ads.
Lobbying
Associated Press: Washington lobbyists put on notice over foreign agent law
By Chad Day and Eric Tucker
A recent and rare prosecution of a Pakistani man in Maryland under a relatively obscure lobbying law has many in the multimillion dollar world of foreign influence bracing for more.
The prosecution of Nisar Ahmed Chaudhry reflects what current and former Justice Department officials say is an aggressive enforcement strategy against unregistered foreign agents that began even before special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation exposed a shadowy world of international influence peddling. The effort comes amid revelations about Russian attempts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election and a stream of high-profile foreign-agent filings from President Donald Trump’s associates…
Officials say they’re not interpreting any differently the little-known law called the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people to disclose to the Justice Department when they lobby in the U.S. on behalf of foreign governments or political entities. But they’ve been taking a more aggressive approach, asking more probing questions of people and firms they suspect need to register, requesting more documents and conducting investigations with an eye toward bringing criminal charges when appropriate.
The Media
NBC News: Pruitt bars AP, CNN from EPA summit on contaminants, guards push reporter out of building
By Associated Press
The Environmental Protection Agency barred The Associated Press and CNN from a national summit on harmful water contaminants on Tuesday – and guards forcibly shoved a female reporter out of the building.
The EPA blocked the media organizations, along with the environmental-focused E&E News, from attending the meeting in Washington, convened by EPA chief Scott Pruitt.
Guards barred an AP reporter from passing through a security checkpoint inside the building.
When the reporter, Ellen Knickmeyer, asked to speak to an EPA public-affairs person, the security guards grabbed the reporter by the shoulders and shoved her forcibly out of the EPA building. She said she was not injured and was later permitted to attend the meeting…
CNN said in a statement that its reporter also was turned away from covering the event “after multiple attempts to attend.” …
EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox told the barred organizations they were not invited and there was no space for them, but gave no indication of why they specifically were barred…
Amid criticism for barring the media outlets, Wilcox announced later that the afternoon session of the meeting would be open to all press.
The States
Springfield News-Leader: Missouri ethics panel has eyes on ‘dark money’ as donations roll in for ballot measures
By Will Schmitt
[A] new opinion concerning politically active not-for-profit corporations shows that ethics watchdogs believe certain not-for-profit corporations need to register as political committees…
[T]his recent contribution of $500,000 came from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a progressive nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.
The recipient was Raise Up Missouri, an initiative to raise the state minimum wage up to $12 over a few years. The contribution came shortly after Raise Up Missouri turned in signatures to try to put the minimum wage hike on the November ballot…
“Because a nonprofit corporation is a ‘person’ under Missouri campaign finance laws, that corporation becomes a committee if it accepts contributions” over those thresholds “for the primary or incidental purpose of influencing or attempting to influence the action of voters for or against the nomination or election to public office of one or more candidates or the qualification, passage or defeat of any ballot,” the ethics commission’s opinion says…
Kanter, the Sixteen Thirty spokeswoman, said the D.C.-based nonprofit did not plan to register as a political committee with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
“Nothing in the recently issued Advisory Opinion requires the Sixteen Thirty Fund to register as a political committee,” Kanter said in a statement.
New York Post: Ex-councilman fined $21K for campaign finance violations
By Rich Calder
A former Queens Councilman was slapped with more than $21,000 in fines by the city’s Campaign Finance Board Thursday for numerous violations during his failed 2013 bid to become borough president.
Peter Vallone Jr., who served on the City Council from 2002 through 2013, was cited for accepting contributions that were over the legal limit; for spending on items not related to the campaign and for spending over the legal limit.
He received $655,488 in public matching funds and returned $3,090 left in his account.
Vallone, who is now a civil court judge, was narrowly defeated by Melinda Katz in the 2013 Democratic primary for borough president.
He’s the son of Queens power broker and former Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr.
Washington Examiner: Georgia becomes 10th state to ban free speech zones on college campuses
By John Patrick
Last week, Georgia became the 10th state to protect a student’s right to free speech on campus by banning colleges from establishing select zones where students would need to enter in order to express free speech.
In a win for college students across the state, outgoing Republican Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed Senate Bill 339 into law, which, among other things, ensures that a student’s right to free speech applies to all locations on a college campus, instead of select, confined zones. According to the text of the bill, this law will prevent colleges and universities from unlawfully shielding individuals on campus from speech that is protected by the First Amendment…
The new law comes amidst multiple lawsuits against Kennesaw State University, a member of the University of Georgia system that has faced growing scrutiny over its handling of several free speech violations on campus. Earlier this year, Kennesaw State was sued by the Alliance Defending Freedom, on behalf of the Kennesaw State University Young Americans for Freedom chapter, over the school’s decision to impose security fees on a lecture by Katie Pavlich merely because school administrators deemed it to be controversial.
