The Courts

National Review: New York’s Assault on the NRA Sets a Dangerous Precedent

By  R. J. Lehmann

The National Rifle Association announced May 11 that it has filed suit against the New York State Department of Financial Services; its superintendent, Maria T. Vullo; and the state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, alleging the state and its agents violated the NRA’s First Amendment rights in a recent regulatory ruling.

I will leave to constitutional scholars to debate the First Amendment question. But in terms of regulating the business of insurance in an effective, efficient, and nonpoliticized manner – a topic about which I am the author of an annual report – the department’s behavior sets a dangerous precedent that should trouble citizens across the political spectrum…

Seeing regulators open this Pandora’s box should be deeply concerning to those on both the right and the left. One easily could imagine similar motivated prosecutions of financial-services firms that do business with Planned Parenthood, tobacco companies, tech firms, the solar industry, or even the political campaigns of rival parties. The precedent set by these blatantly political regulatory actions undermines not only the insurance market, but the rule of law.

National Constitution Center: An old constitutional question in the Trump Twitter case

By Scott Bomboy

If a federal judge wants Donald Trump to stop blocking users on his Twitter account, does the President need to comply? Or is the act of asking so outside of the Constitution?

Those seem to be the core questions scholars are considering after last week’s decision by Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump. In her 75-page opinion from the United States District Court Southern District Of New York, Buchwald made it clear she believed the President’s decision to block some critics from participating in his Twitter feed raised First Amendment issues.

“The viewpoint-based exclusion of the individual plaintiffs from that designated public forum is proscribed by the First Amendment and cannot be justified by the President’s personal First Amendment interests,” Buchwald said.

Equally noteworthy was what Buchwald didn’t do, and that was directly issue an injunction forcing President Trump and Social Media Director Dan Scavino to “unblock” the banned followers. Instead, Buchwald issued a declaratory judgment that “the blocking of the individual plaintiffs from the @realDonaldTrump account because of their expressed political views violates the First Amendment.”

National Review: Twitter and the First Amendment – Part II

By Greg Dolin

In Part I of this blog post, I discussed why I don’t think Twitter is a public forum, a condition that would be necessary for any claim that viewpoint discrimination in that realm is constitutionally prohibited. In this part I want to address other potential arguments that can be made against permitting government officials to ban critical Twitter users and why I find them equally unconvincing…

In the next and last part of this blog post I will focus on the problems that are likely to arise if the decision prohibiting politicians from blocking Twitter followers is upheld.

Internet Speech Regulation

The Verge: Facebook’s ad rules are forcing news outlets to register as political advertisers

By Russell Brandom

The system is meant to be a minor inconvenience for a political campaign, but those same rules also apply to neutral news content, and they seem to have taken many publications by surprise. A limited search by The Verge found 85 news posts that had fallen afoul of the rules in the first week of enforcement, including seemingly innocuous stories on graduation speeches or the British royal family.

The blocks have already affected some of the largest media organizations on the web. A Vice News post on Donald Trump’s canceled North Korea summit fell victim to the same filter as the Showtime ads; ultimately it was pulled from promotion after Facebook classified the ads as political. The same mechanism canceled promotion for a Vox podcast on a recent labor ruling by the Supreme Court, as well as an Asia Times op-ed defending America’s diplomatic posture toward Iran.

The idea that news outlets should verify themselves as political advertisers has proven controversial. When Facebook first proposed its guidelines, the company met with serious objections from the News Media Alliance, a trade group representing nearly 2,000 news organizations…

Some media companies are already refusing to register in light the News Media Alliance’s objections, including Vox Media, parent company of both Vox and The Verge.

Slate: Facebook Thought an Ad From Bush’s Baked Beans Was “Political” and Removed It

By Aaron Mak

While Facebook’s move toward greater advertising transparency is laudable, it appears the company hasn’t quite smoothed out all the kinks in the system. It’s a difficult task to determine what exactly “political content” is. As the Verge has documented, Facebook labeled ads for a report on Flint’s water crisis and for a podcast episode on the Russian media’s coverage of Trump as being political. News outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times have also bristled at the idea of labeling their promoted posts as political ads.

Apart from these murkier cases, however, there is a wealth of categorically apolitical ads that have also been caught up in the dragnet. For example, Facebook’s system has automatically removed ads for Bush’s Beans and a barbershop because they failed to include the “Paid for by” disclaimer. It’s unclear why exactly this is happening, though it may have something to do with the A.I. system that Facebook is using to identify political ads. (I’ve asked Facebook for comment and will update this post when I hear back.)

Here is a sampling of ads pulled from the database that have been apparently mislabeled as political: …

Candidates and Campaigns

The Intercept: In Three California House Races, Wealthy Democrats Have Spent $16 Million of Their Own Money So Far

By David Dayen

[T]he rules of campaign finance favor the superwealthy, drawing in inexperienced millionaires cheered on by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to shoulder the mega-spending it takes to win congressional seats. And self-funded candidates happen to be bad at elections.

Data from the Center for Responsive Politics finds that candidates who put $500,000 or more of their own money into House and Senate races in 2016 won only 12.5 percent of the time…

More outside money has been spent in these three races than any nonspecial House election in America (with the exception of one race in Pennsylvania). Democratic groups have thrown in $10.04 million, nearly five times more than Republican groups’ $2.27 million. That’s on top of the $16.1 million in Democratic self-funding…

But the millions in cash may not be convincing voters. A look at absentee ballot returns created by data analyst Paul Mitchell shows low turnout and disproportionate Republican votes in two of the three key districts…

“There are diminishing returns to more money spent, more saturation of ads,” said Newman of MapLight. “But when other candidates are spending a lot of money, people feel pressured to keep up. It’s an arms race.” …

The Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo ruled that individuals can contribute unlimited amounts to their own campaigns. One way of counteracting that would be through small donor matching programs that use public funding to leverage millions of individual contributions. “That allows the public to be power players again,” said Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., author of the Government By the People Act, which would grant a $25 tax credit for campaign donations and amplify it with federal matching dollars.

Portland Press Herald: Another View: 2nd District Democrats should be positive, issues-focused, St. Clair says

By Lucas St. Clair

Unfortunately, there’s been little coverage of the issues this campaign season. There has been plenty of coverage of the horse race and game theory about who ranked-choice voting helps and who it hurts.

There have been snarky columns attacking me (by writers I like and respect, like Bill Nemitz) for campaign ads by third-party organizations.

And now, state Rep. Jared Golden, one of my opponents for the Democratic nomination to challenge Poliquin in the fall, is running negative ads against me.

Golden has a great story to tell about himself and his record of service. But instead of telling his story, he’s attacking me for advertising I have nothing to do with.

I’ve publicly stated, on numerous occasions, and I will do so again, that the Maine Outdoor Alliance should disclose its donors.

The campaign finance system is broken, and that’s true no matter who is doing the spending or what campaigns are supposed to benefit. We have to fix it.

Getting money out of politics is an important issue for our campaign. I support overturning Citizens United, and I support the Disclose Act, which would add greater transparency to campaign finance. We should also consider creating a campaign finance system similar to Maine’s Clean Election Act that encourages small-dollar donations, such as the Government by the People Act.

I support the Honest Ads Act, which increases disclosure requirements, and the Get Foreign Money Out of U.S. Elections Act, which, as the name says, would get foreign money out of elections.

The States

Kansas City Star: Judge delays order forcing Greitens’ political nonprofit to hand over records

By Jaosn Hancock

A Cole County judge on Friday delayed an order forcing Gov. Eric Greitens’ dark-money nonprofit to turn over documents to the House committee that’s been investigating the governor for three months.

Circuit Judge Jon Beetem said that because of “the extraordinary events of this week,” he was delaying the order until after a hearing sought by the nonprofit, A New Missouri Inc. That hearing could come as early as Monday.

Beetem on Tuesday had ordered A New Missouri to abide by a subpoena issued by the Missouri House and turn over documents that lawmakers believe might demonstrate efforts to illegally circumvent the state’s campaign disclosure laws…

The House insists that despite the governor’s resignation, A New Missouri still must comply with the judge’s order.

In an email to The Star Friday morning, A New Missouri’s attorney, Catherine Hanaway, said she had filed a motion asking the judge to reconsider the order and a motion to delay turning over any documents until the judge can hear arguments.

Salon: Missouri’s dark money scandal, explained

By Ciara C Torres-Spelliscy

The obscurity inherent in all dark money transactions makes them hard to follow and to keep track when they get politicians into hot water.

For instance, Greitens announced he would resign within hours of a judge ordering that the real identities of the backers of a social welfare group called A New Missouri Inc. be made public. His exit came amid impeachment proceeedings related to the alleged misuse of another nonprofit’s donor list, for which he faced a felony charge…

Some states have taken steps to diminish the role of dark money in state elections.

California enacted the California Disclose Act in 2017 to improve disclosure. Maryland has a requirement that corporations tell shareholders about their political spending.

At the same time, some states have eased the flow of dark money. For example, Arizona passed a law preventing its cities from fighting dark money, and Wisconsin relaxed its campaign finance laws in 2015.

And Congress has done nothing to improve federal disclosures in elections. This leaves voters in the dark as they choose among candidates in the midterm elections. Unless Missouri tightens up its disclosure rules, the state’s voters may elect their next governor without knowing who is actually supporting the candidates on the ballot.

New Bedford Standard-Times: Montigny advances campaign finance reform

Sen. Mark C. Montigny, assistant majority leader and Rules Committee chairman, favorably reported legislation from his committee to combat “the insidious use of money in politics and the legislative process.”

Originally filed as a means to address the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the resolution calls on Congress to propose an amendment to the Constitution that directs it and the states to “place limits on political contributions and expenditures to ensure that all citizens have access to the political process.” S2243 will also serve as a petition by the Commonwealth to Congress for an Article V constitutional convention should Congress fail to propose an amendment…

An original co-sponsor to the bill, Montigny said in a statement that “The corrupting influence of the overwhelming amount of money in American politics has endangered our democracy and rendered the average voter almost insignificant in comparison to large corporations and those willing to sell out to the highest bidder.

“We simply cannot stand for this and, if Congress does not act, we must take real steps at the state level to impose massive reforms. We can no longer accept the wrong-headed juxtaposition that corporations are persons for purposes of undermining democracy yet shielded when engaging in criminal behavior.”

St. Louis Public Radio: Politically Speaking: Clean Missouri proponents contend ballot initiative will cleanse the state

By Jason Rosenbaum

On the latest edition of Politically Speaking, St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum welcomes Sean Soendker Nicholson, Sen. Rob Schaaf and former Sen. Jim Lembke to the program to talk about a ballot initiative known as “Clean Missouri.”

Clean Missouri is a multi-faceted ethics proposal that seeks to curb lobbyist-paid freebies, make it more difficult for lawmakers to become lobbyists, tweak campaign finance laws and, perhaps most notably, overhaul how state legislative districts are drawn.

Organizers turned in more than 300,000 signatures for Clean Missouri, making it likely that it will appear on the November ballot later this year. Some of the elements of the Clean Missouri proposal include: …

Slightly lowering campaign donation limits for Senate and House candidates. It also makes it difficult for a large donor to set up multiple political action committees to get around limits.

Crain’s New York Business: Union could use de Blasio panel to tear hole in campaign finance law

By Will Bredderman

De Blasio assembled the commission to consider alterations to the city’s constitution and place them on the ballot before voters this fall. Representatives of 32BJ SEIU, the hyperpolitical union representing roughly 85,000 building and custodial staff in the five boroughs, has appeared at several of its hearings and lobbied for the panel to recommend lifting strictures on organized labor’s ability to coordinate with political campaigns when mobilizing their members ahead of an election.

At present, the city’s Campaign Finance Board requires that unions quantify any such internal turnout operations as a donation to a candidate (subject to tight limits), or establish an “independent expenditure” account that cannot in any way interact with a politician’s campaign.

“The current city finance laws impede the ability of members to communicate with one another about elections,” Allison Hirsh, 32BJ’s political director, lamented at a hearing earlier this month. “This is confusing and frustrating to our members and is actually a disincentive to their active participation in the democratic process.”

Allentown Morning Call: Pennsylvania lawmaker floats local campaign finance ‘transparency’ bill

By Steve Esack

There is no central repository of campaign finance reports that county, municipal and school officials must file.

State Rep. Pete Schweyer, D-Lehigh, wants to change that.

He has proposed a bill that would require county election offices to upload campaign finance reports to the Pennsylvania Department of State’s online database in a bid to make local elections more transparent.

If his bill becomes law, citizens would have the state’s first one-stop shop for campaign finance. State elected officials – lawmakers, judges, lieutenant governor, governor – already file campaign finance reports at the Department of State.

“My legislation would require all county Board of Elections to file these reports with the Department of State for publication on their publicly accessible website within 30 days of receipt of all local candidate’s campaign finance reports,” Schweyer wrote in a May 23 memo to the House.