Supreme Court
National Review: To Save a Bad Gun Law, Democratic Senators Threaten the Supreme Court
By David French
Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Mazie Hirono, Richard Blumenthal, Richard Durbin, and Kirsten Gillibrand filed their short brief in a case called New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. the City of New York…
The senators ask the Court to dismiss the case to “stem the growing public belief that its decisions are ‘motivated mainly by politics.'” It then details how much money the NRA spent to support the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh (there’s no mention of the amount of money progressive groups have spent to support the confirmation of progressive judges), questions the sources of money funding amicus briefs opposing New York’s law, and then claims that if there were transparency, the petitioners’ “amicus army would likely be revealed as more akin to marionettes controlled by a puppetmaster than to a groundswell of support rallying to a cause.” …
The brief ends with this ominous warning:
The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it. Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be “restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.” Particularly on the urgent issue of gun control, a nation desperately needs it to heal.
Translation: Nice nine-person Supreme Court you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.
The Courts
Missouri Times: Federal court rules against Toalson Reisch for blocking constituent on Twitter
By Alisha Shurr
A Missouri state lawmaker violated a constituent’s First Amendment rights by blocking him on Twitter, a federal court ruled.
On Friday, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri sided with Mike Campbell in his legal battle against Rep. Cheri Toalson Reisch.
“[Campbell]’s continued exclusion from the interactive space of [Toalson Reisch]’s tweets based on viewpoint is inconsistent with the First Amendment. The Court thus concludes [Toalson Reisch] has established the deprivation of a constitutional right for purposes of his § 1983 claim,” the 16-page ruling states…
[T]he federal court determined the “interactive space” of Toalson Reisch’s Twitter account is controlled by her in her “capacity as a state legislator, such that the interactive space is government-controlled and subject to forum analysis.”…
“In the absence of evidence suggesting Defendant blocked Plaintiff for any reason other than to exclude comments critical of Defendant’s role as a public official, the Court finds Defendant’s actions were under color of state law,” the ruling states.
Reason: Is YouTube Discriminating Against Both Conservatives and LGBT Videos? Two Lawsuits Say Yes.
By Scott Shackford
[A] group of eight LGBT YouTube creators announced a federal class-action lawsuit against Google and YouTube claiming “discrimination, fraud, unfair and deceptive business practices, unlawful restraint of speech, and breach of consumer contract rights”…
It’s fascinating how much their complaints mirror those by Prager University, which argues that Google and YouTube discriminate against their content because they’re conservatives. In fact, Prager U and these LGBT creators are being represented in their lawsuits by the same firm, Browne George Ross LLP…
The lawsuit, much like the Prager U complaints, leans heavily on the idea that, because YouTube is such a powerful, dominant online hosting system for videos, it’s under an obligation to be “viewpoint-neutral,” and in fact, YouTube claims that they are indeed viewpoint-neutral in their moderation…
The lawsuit also argues that YouTube isn’t censoring enough when it comes to anti-LGBT speech and hate speech showing up in their channels. The lawsuit complains about advertisements with anti-LGBT speech being placed in front of their videos by YouTube, offending viewers and discouraging them from watching. And the lawsuit further complains about the inability of content creators to effectively police the comments in their channels to weed out hate speech…
[W]ithout trying to guess at the outcome, I’ll note that Prager U has already lost a lawsuit last year over claims like this, as a judge held that YouTube was a private platform and not a “state actor.” The judge also said that simply because YouTube expresses values supporting free speech doesn’t mean it must structure moderation with the First Amendment in mind.
Disclosure
New York Times: Personal Data About Small-Donor Democrats Is All Over the Internet
By David M. Primo
Under federal law, candidates must publicly disclose the personal information of only those donors who give them more than $200 in an election cycle. Viewed in this light, ActBlue’s most recent filing, from July 31, makes no sense, as many of the disclosed donors had given tiny amounts well below this threshold.
But what ActBlue buries in its privacy policy (which, let’s face it, nobody reads) is that it is required by law to send your name and address along with the name of the candidate you are donating to and the size of your contribution to the Federal Election Commission.
ActBlue is what is known as a “conduit” for campaign funds. The name and address of contributors who donate to candidates through conduits must be disclosed, according to federal law, regardless of amount. (ActBlue states on its privacy page that it must also report a contributor’s employer and occupation for all donations, but as I understand federal election law, ActBlue must report that information only once contributions from a single donor to a candidate made through its services exceed $200.)
The animating concern here is that conduits will be used to facilitate end runs around campaign finance rules. But these disclosure regulations were created years before small donations became de rigueur in presidential politics. It’s a familiar story of the law not keeping pace with technological change…
At a time when Americans increasingly view members of the opposing political party as enemies, we should rethink campaign finance disclosure laws – especially for small donations. At a minimum, all candidates for federal office and their conduits should be required to make clear at the time of a donation if a contribution will result in personal information being made public on the internet.
FEC
Daily Caller: FEC Chief Supported Russia-NRA Campaign Finance Probe Based Solely On ‘Vague’ News Article
By Chuck Ross
In a statement released Friday, FEC Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, took her Republican colleagues to task for voting to shut down an inquiry into whether Torshin sent millions to the NRA…
On July 9, the FEC’s four commissioners voted along party lines, 2-2, to dismiss a complaint against the NRA, Torshin, and his associate Maria Butina.
In her letter, Weintraub said her support for the investigation rested solely on the McClatchy article.
The American Democracy Legal Fund, a liberal watchdog group, filed a complaint with the FEC on Jan. 31, 2018 citing the article…
The FEC’s office of legal counsel on May 28 recommended dismissing the complaint, saying that “the available information does not support a finding of reason to believe with respect to the alleged violations of federal campaign finance law.”
“The allegations in the Complaint are premised on a vague news article reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (‘FBI’) is investigating whether Torshin may have funneled money to the NRA, but without providing any specifics,” reads a May 28 report signed by Lisa Stevenson, who has served as the FEC’s acting general counsel since September 2016.
Despite the assessment from career FEC lawyers, Weintrub insisted that Republicans had shut down “one of the most blockbuster campaign finance allegations in recent memory.”
Congress
By Asher Stockler
“A foreign adversary interfered in the 2016 presidential election and the response from Republicans at every level, whether it be President Trump, congressional Republicans, or now the Republican appointees on the Federal Election Commission, has been to bury their heads in the sand or actively obstruct getting to the bottom of what happened,” [Sen. Ron] Wyden said in a written statement.
“It’s inexcusable that Republican commissioners would block an investigation into whether Russian money was funneled through the National Rifle Association to help President Trump. The blatant partisanship is appalling, undermines our democracy and leaves us vulnerable to continued interference in 2020,” he continued…
Wyden had previously written to the FEC in May after news reports documented links between Torshin and the NRA. Those reports spurred Wyden, as ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has oversight of non-profit organizations such as the NRA, to conduct a correspondence with the gun-rights group…
In July, two weeks after the Department of Justice unsealed a criminal complaint against Butina on related charges of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Russia, Wyden sent another letter to the FEC urging them once more to take up the matter…
The House Ways and Means Committee, the oversight body in the House of Representatives with jurisdiction over non-profit organizations, has so far declined to launch a formal probe of the NRA, though it is under the control of Democrat Richard Neal.
One of the committee’s members, Democratic Representative Brad Schneider, has taken it upon himself in his individual capacity to probe some the NRA’s financial misconduct scandals that have destabilized the group this year.
Fundraising
By Eugene Kim
Over a three-week period starting in late May, five senior executives from Amazon made individual contributions to Rep. David Cicilline, the Democrat from Rhode Island who’s leading the House antitrust investigation into major tech companies, public filings show…
Amazon executives have other reasons to support him. Cicilline introduced the Equality Act, which prohibits employee discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or medical condition, and was a key supporter of raising the federal minimum wage — two initiatives the company supports. Those are the only two issues that all of Amazon’s registered lobbyists have lobbied for in the past, according to a person familiar with the matter…
While it’s almost impossible to find the exact correlation between corporate donations and policy decisions, a 2017 study by political science professors at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University concluded that the quid-pro-quo narrative is hard to establish. One of the main findings was that large corporate donors saw little stock price increases when their preferred candidates won the election.
“I would suspect, given our evidence, that these donations do not meaningfully distort policy or the positions of candidates,” Anthony Fowler, one of the authors of the report, told CNBC.
Cicilline, at least for now, doesn’t seem to favor Amazon…
Jorg Spenkuch, a political science professor at Northwestern University, said it’s hard to know the motives of individual executives, but [Amazon CEO Jeff] Bezos’s absence could help avoid any unwanted attention from Trump, a frequent critic of Amazon’s CEO.
“Giving to Democratic candidates might make Bezos even more of a target for Trump than he already is,” Spenkuch said.
The Media
Portland Press Herald: WGME, other Sinclair stations, run stories promoting Trump campaign merchandise
By Colin Woodard
Over the past five days, WGME and at least 20 other stations owned by the conservative Sinclair Broadcasting Group published nearly identical versions of the story which reports how the Trump campaign has started selling a new version of its red “Make America Great Again” hats, including a catalog-like description of the product and its price.
The Daily Beast reported Monday morning that originally the stories included a link that took readers directly to the Trump campaign’s web store, which sells products to fund the president’s re-election…
The story probably wouldn’t have to be reported as a campaign contribution under current federal campaign finance law, says campaign finance legal expert Richard Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine. “It wouldn’t be a contribution unless it was being done in coordination with a campaign, and even if it counts as a contribution, there’s an exemption for the media engaged in a bona fide news story,” Hasen said. “So someone could file a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission arguing this wasn’t a bona fide news story, but it would take them a few years to figure it out.”
The States
Bend Bulletin: Dems’ motives not all pure
By Editorial Board
Oregon Democrats have come out hard for “substantial regulation” of political spending in Oregon. They are, of course, citing the evil corporations and rich guys who pour funds into local campaigns and who, in their collective opinion, should be stopped.
What the resolution approved by the state party’s central committee fails to mention is this: Campaign finance limits are a boon to the woman – or man – already in office, and are particularly tough on political newcomers.
Running for governor, or any other statewide office, means, in Oregon, getting your name and message out over some 98,466 square miles. If you’ve been a senator from Bend or a county commissioner from Josephine County, just letting voters know you’re running and what you stand for is grueling, expensive and time consuming.
If, however, you’re a former secretary of state or attorney general, the job’s much easier. It’s easier still when, as secretary of state, you’re appointed to fill the term of a governor who resigned from office in disgrace. Just ask Gov. Kate Brown.
The same is true on a local level. The city councilor in office has a major leg up on the unknown who might hope to capture his or her seat.
Money can change that. It buys lawn signs, advertising and most of everything else that goes into a successful campaign. It’s critical to introducing the newbie to a constituency that knows the three-term incumbent but almost nothing about the opponent.
