In the News
Cowboy State Daily: Legislative Committee Skeptical About Banning “Dark Money” From Wyoming Campaigns
By Leo Wolfson
Steve Klein of Wyoming Liberty Group, a nonpartisan group that encourages citizen participation in government and free speech…describes dark money as a “red herring” issue.
“There are myriad organizations that have not and never will disclose their donors,” he said. “Even though they engage in political speech that’s going to somehow, somewhere down the road, 8 degrees of separation, affect an election.”
In 2020, the State of Wyoming fined Second Amendment advocacy group Wyoming Gun Owners for failing to disclose its donors, saying the organization spent more than $500 on “electioneering communication,” so it was subject to financial disclosure laws. In March, a federal judge said this fine was unconstitutional.
Ed. note: The Institute for Free Speech represented Wyoming Gun Owners in the case.
New from the Institute for Free Speech
By Bradley A. Smith
In 2021, Cara Dumaplin, a registered neo-natal nurse, created a successful internet business helping parents of newborns with parenting and childrearing advice. A business competitor shared screenshots of Dumaplin’s political contributions showing that she had made donations to the re-election campaign of Donald Trump. Dumaplin made 36 donations between $25 and $35 to the Trump campaign – not exactly huge money. The screenshots of the Federal Election Commission report were widely shared across social media platforms. Given the vast unpopularity of Dumaplin’s political association among her clientele, the result was no surprise: Boycotts of her website, merchandise, and consulting services ensued…
Stories like this are too numerous to catalogue. Yet many never come to light because the harassment is carried out privately and has its desired effect: the person stops supporting or associating with the group and stops speaking out about the issue. Given the ease of finding and spreading donor information on the internet, disclosure-fueled harassment is likely to become more, not less, common over time. If politicians are ready to threaten donors over differences in tax policy, and if people are organizing boycotts and threatening individuals and businesses over $25 donations to candidates they don’t like, then imagine the harms inflicted if every Planned Parenthood donor, every National Rifle Association member, and every Black Lives Matter supporter were forcibly published on a government website. That is the danger of creating new, more expansive disclosure laws.
The Courts
Epoch Times: Journalist Alex Berenson Reaches Settlement With Twitter
By Zachary Stieber
Independent journalist Alex Berenson and Twitter have agreed to a settlement over a lawsuit that alleged the big tech company violated Berenson’s constitutional rights when it banned him.
The parties “have reached a settlement in principle,” according to a joint stipulation filed in federal court in California on June 29…
The filings contain no details concerning the settlement details. Berenson said in an initial blog post that he couldn’t share details until the settlement is actually filed but later pointed out how he’d promised that “there would be no settlement without third-party discovery.”
Berenson emphasized he will not accept an agreement unless it allows him to not only obtain materials from Twitter, but to talk about those materials…
Twitter banned Berenson, formerly of the New York Times, from the platform in August 2021, claiming he violated the company’s rules against promoting COVID-19 misinformation.
Berenson said in the suit that he was assured by a senior executive that he would not be banned, that he did not break the rules, and that Twitter broke its promises and policies in removing him.
Biden Administration
New York Times: Disinformation Has Become Another Untouchable Problem in Washington
By Steven Lee Myers and Eileen Sullivan
In Washington, there is not even agreement on the threats, with Republicans seizing on the fight against disinformation as an effort to silence conservative voices.
According to internal Homeland Security Department documents that established the board, they include crises ripped from today’s headlines…
The documents were made public by two Republican senators who vocally attacked the board, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Josh Hawley of Missouri. They cited them as evidence not of the need to combat disinformation but rather of the board’s nefarious aims, even though the memorandums all emphasized the principal need to protect free speech. Among the documents, though, were talking points that Mr. Mayorkas had received for a meeting with officials from Twitter to address disinformation, which the senators characterized as an effort “to suppress disfavored content.” …
A spokeswoman for Mr. Hawley, Abigail Marone, said President Biden was “intent on leading the most anti-First Amendment administration in American history.”
“His idea of ‘disinformation’ is parents speaking out about their kids being taught critical race theory or concerned Americans asking legitimate questions about Covid vaccines,” she added. “Biden’s aim is to use the power of the federal government to shut speech down.”
FEC
By Steve Contorno
Few people noticed when the Federal Election Commission deadlocked last month over whether US Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida in 2020 had broken a law intended to keep money raised for a state campaign out of federal elections.
But election lawyer Brett Kappel closely followed the case, and he immediately thought of one person who could benefit greatly from the outcome: Ron DeSantis…
Kappel believes that the FEC’s inaction against Donalds could give DeSantis a blueprint for how to raise money for a prospective presidential campaign while still running for governor.
Politico: Warnock used campaign funds to fight personal lawsuit
By Natalie Allison
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) used campaign money to cover legal expenses for a lawsuit relating to his time as a church minister — transactions that raise questions about whether the spending runs afoul of federal rules governing personal use of campaign funds.
The States
PoliticoPro: Scutari says he’ll try again in the fall to pass massive campaign finance bill
By Matt Friedman
Legislation to rewrite New Jersey’s campaign finance laws that stalled last week could make a comeback in the fall, Senate President Nick Scutari said Tuesday.
“We’re going to bring it back up in the fall and I think it will pass,” Scutari said in a phone interview.
The Elections Transparency Act, NJ S2866 (22R), would make massive changes to New Jersey’s campaign finance laws. It would: double most campaign contribution limits and require disclosure of major contributions within days of receiving them; do away with all local pay-to-play laws and many state-level restrictions; and fine-tune a blocked law that would require “dark money” nonprofit groups to disclose donors in an effort to make it constitutionally-palatable to federal judges.
Although Scutari has discussed an overhaul to New Jersey’s campaign finance system for more than a year, the 51-page Elections Transparency Act was introduced late last month, just a week before it began advancing through committees. It had been scheduled for a vote in the Senate last Wednesday, but was pulled from the agenda that morning.
