In the News
Wall Street Journal: Political Giving Should Be Private
By Bradley A. Smith
A third of Americans fear being fired for their political beliefs. Unfortunately, for those who wish to support political campaigns, federal and state laws leave no place to hide…
Campaign contributions are public because the law requires it. Every American who gives more than $200 to a candidate for president or Congress, or to a political party, has his name, address and employer published in an online, searchable database. Every state has similar laws for reporting contributions to state candidates, many with substantially lower donation thresholds.
It wasn’t always this way. The earliest laws mandating that donations be reported date only from the late 19th century, and weren’t seriously enforced, by states or Congress, until the 1970s. Even then accessing reports required visiting a government office and digging through paper or microfiche records…
Today, the laws haven’t changed, but the technological and cultural landscapes have shifted dramatically. Anyone can look up your donations in seconds…
It is hard to imagine anything more mainstream than supporting a major party nominee for president, but today it’s enough to get you “canceled.” …
Yet some politicians now want to force advocacy groups and nonprofits to expose their supporters, too. Want to see cancel culture on steroids? Follow their lead.
If, on the other hand, you think Americans have a right to support candidates without losing their livelihoods or their sense of security, then it’s time to revisit compulsory disclosure laws.
NCSL: Where Money and Free Speech Intersect Webinar
Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020, 2 p.m. ET/ 1 p.m. CT/ Noon MT/ 11 a.m. PT
With technological advancements, an evolving legal landscape, and changing political tactics, how are states ensuring transparency at the same time they’re protecting free speech? Learn about state efforts to regulate money in politics (whether on the campaign trail or in the legislature) and when those efforts bump into free speech.
Moderator:
-Senator Daniel Ivey-Soto, New Mexico
Speakers:
-Bradley Smith, Institute for Free Speech
-Danielle Caputo, Issue One
-Christi Zamarripa, NCSL
Nossaman: Compliance Notes: Vol. 1, Issue 18
Oregon: The Taxpayers Association of Oregon filed an amicus brief urging a state circuit court to strike down Multnomah County’s limits on campaign contributions, arguing the low limits are unconstitutional and unconstitutionally restrict a candidate’s personal contributions to his or her own campaign. (Institute for Free Speech, Press Release)
New from the Institute for Free Speech
Pledges Against Corporate PACs Do Little but Confuse and Harm
By Nathan Maxwell
In a recent ad, an Iowa Senate candidate made the all-too-familiar pledge to “[not] take a dime of corporate PAC money, period.” Another House candidate in Illinois made a similar claim, writing, “I am proud to announce that I won’t be taking corporate PAC money in this campaign or in Congress.”
These pledges are certainly not novel, but rather something we’ve seen time and time again. While the intuitive response may be to praise such promises for their heroic altruism, they often mean very little in practice. Candidate pledges denouncing support from select groups tend to utilize public misunderstanding of campaign finance law to generate the facade of moral superiority, trade one form of support from business leaders for another, or fail to accurately represent the money supporting a specific campaign.
Nonprofits
Wall Street Journal: The NRA Has a Right to Exist
By David Cole
The American Civil Liberties Union rarely finds itself on the same side as the National Rifle Association in policy debates or political disputes. Still, we are disturbed by New York Attorney General Letitia James’s recent effort to dissolve the NRA…
You may have your own opinions about the NRA, but all Americans should be concerned about this sort of overreach. If the New York attorney general can do this to the NRA, why couldn’t the attorney general of a red state take similar action against the ACLU, the AFL-CIO, Common Cause, or Everytown for Gun Safety?
Our democracy is premised on the right of association. The First Amendment protects not only the right to speak, but also to band together with others to advance one’s views. Making or resisting change in a democracy requires collective action, and a healthy democracy therefore demands a robust “civil society.” The right to associate can’t survive if officials can shut down organizations with which they disagree. The Supreme Court has notably invoked that right to protect union members, Communist Party adherents, the Boy Scouts and the NAACP…
The right to associate is a right for all, not just for those whom government officials favor.
Online Speech Platforms
Washington Post: Black voters are being targeted in disinformation campaigns, echoing the 2016 Russian playbook
By Craig Timberg and Isaac Stanley-Becker
Four years after Russian operatives used social media in a bid to exacerbate racial divisions in the United States and suppress Black voter turnout, such tactics have spread across a wide range of deceptive online campaigns operated from numerous nations – including from within the United States itself.
The potency and persistence of the racial playbook was highlighted this week when Twitter deleted an account featuring a profile photo of a young Black man claiming to be a former Black Lives Matter protester who switched his allegiance to the Republican Party.
The account, @WentDemtoRep, offered an online testimonial Sunday…and was retweeted 22,000 times…
Twitter removed the account Tuesday for policy violations after it had amassed 15,000 followers despite tweeting just a few times, all this month…
Deen Freelon [is] a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the lead author of the recent article “Black Trolls Matter: Racial and Ideological Asymmetries in Social Media Disinformation.” He pointed to the “long history” of what the article terms “digital blackface” in finding that presenting oneself as a Black activist is the most effective disinformation tactic for driving online engagement.
The Verge: Facebook chose not to act on militia complaints before Kenosha shooting
By Russell Brandom
In the wake of an apparent double murder Tuesday night in Kenosha, Facebook has faced a wave of scrutiny over posts by a self-proclaimed militia group called Kenosha Guard, which issued a “call to arms” to in advance of the protest.
Facebook took down Kenosha Guard’s Facebook page Wednesday morning, identifying the posts as violating community standards. But while the accounts were ultimately removed, new evidence suggests the platform had ample warning about the account before the shooting brought the group to prominence.
At least two separate Facebook users reported the account for inciting violence prior to the shooting, The Verge has learned. In each case, the group and its counter-protest event were examined by Facebook moderators and found not to be in violation of the platform’s policies…
Reached for comment, Facebook said the company’s investigation had produced no direct links between the shooting and the Kenosha Guard accounts.
Candidates and Campaigns
By Andrew Perez, Julia Rock, and Walker Bragman
Facing a spirited progressive primary challenge, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass. is pressuring a local television station to pull down an ad criticizing his reliance on corporate PAC money, according to a letter obtained by TMI from Neal’s attorney…
The cease and desist letter from an attorney representing Neal’s campaign insists that there is a material distinction between donations from corporations and donations from corporations’ political action committees and that by not making that distinction clear, the implication was that Neal had committed a crime.
“You have full power to reject the ad for any reason,” wrote Neal’s attorney Brian Svoboda of the Democratic powerhouse law firm Perkins Coie to WWLP-22News, a local NBC affiliate…
Neal’s counsel called the commercial “defamatory” and implied that the station could face legal consequences: “Because you need not run this ad, you enjoy no immunity from liability for its false claims, and are fully responsible for the defamation and any other torts that might result from their dissemination.”
The Fulcrum: Report: Foreign powers exploit election law weaknesses to interfere in U.S. elections
By Bill Theobald
A chilling new report outlines how Russia, China and other authoritarian regimes have used weaknesses in campaign finance and financial reporting laws to launch attacks on the political processes in the United States and elsewhere.
The report, released last week by the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund, found that authoritarian regimes spent more than $300 million in the past decade on dozens of interference campaigns.
Among the foreign powers’ methods of attack: government-funded disinformation; funneling money to campaigns through straw donors, nonprofits and shell companies; and providing in-kind donations to U.S. and other Western politicians…
The report includes numerous recommendations for U.S. policy makers, including passage of several pieces of legislation that were introduced in response to cybersecurity concerns raised four years ago.
The States
WGAL News 8: Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf outlines fall agenda, including bid to legalize recreational marijuana
By Matt Barcaro
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf outlined his proposed legislative agenda for this fall at a Tuesday morning news conference…
The governor’s office released the following statement: …
“Campaign Finance Reform – Enacting new campaign finance laws that would place limits on contributions to candidates seeking elected office, implement aggregate limits for races, place sensible restrictions on Political Action Committees (PACs), and strengthen reporting and disclosure requirements across the board to restore confidence in government, and curtail the role of campaign spending in our political process.
“Outside Income Transparency – Requiring public officials to disclose sources, type of work, and amount of outside income received.
