Free Speech

Washington Post: Conservatives say campus speech is under threat. That’s been true for most of history.

By Todd Gitlin

Americans may like to think of their institutions of higher learning as grounded in classically liberal ideas, as places where, in the words of John Stuart Mill, “there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.” But in practice, American campuses have rarely been quite so welcoming to nonconforming views. Speech has gotten faculty fired and students arrested; it has been met not only with dirty looks but also with heckling and sometimes violence.

What’s true is that old forms of censorship – by administrative fiat, governing boards, government regulations and prosecutors – are less common than they once were. Today, it’s more likely that the call to rule out obnoxious views comes from students. And yet one way or the other, freedom is embattled. Golden ages only show up in rearview mirrors, and even then, objects may be farther away than they appear.

Reason: ‘No Free Speech for Fascists’ Is a Truly Terrible Idea

By Katherine Mangu-Ward

When people live in low-trust societies-that is, when citizens broadly believe that corruption is rampant and the powerful cannot be relied upon to follow the rules-they paradoxically tend to call for more regulation and other types of government action. That impulse was on full display in the anti-speech reaction to the cold-blooded murder of Heather Heyer. Many observers looked at what happened in Charlottesville and decided that not only were the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and alt-righters who gathered in Virginia culpable for egging on those who physically lashed out, the legal and political institutions that defended their speech rights were as well. These are not just angry or grieving laymen; Waldo Jaquith, a member of the board of the ACLU of Virginia, resigned after the protest turned violent, characterizing the group’s support for the right to gather as “a fig leaf for the Nazis.”

But if fascists are to lose their free speech rights, someone must take them. And if you believe, as many of the counter-protesters do, that the white nationalists and their brethren were emboldened by the presence of a man in the White House who sees them as part of his coalition, then why on God’s good green earth would you want to turn around and hand that very man the right to censor anyone whom he labels fascists? 

Donor Privacy

Nonprofit Quarterly: Liberating the 501(c)(4) from the “Dark Money” Trap

By Sheela Nimishakavi and Steve Dubb

While 501(c)(3) nonprofits can and should engage in advocacy and lobbying, the extent to which they are able to do so is limited, whereas 501(c)(4)s can engage in as much of any type of political activity so long as less than 50 percent of the organization’s funds are used for political purposes. Put together, this means that 501(c)(4) organizations can accept large sums of money to influence a political outcome with no one knowing who’s behind the wheel…

But one does not have to be a fan of current campaign finance law to understand the importance of combining advocacy, public education, lobbying, and electoral campaigns for nonprofits to achieve their social change missions. The 501(c)(3) legal structure limits the ability of nonprofits to lobbying and prohibits electioneering, yet many events that take place in politics can dramatically affect their ability to achieve their missions…

While transparency is absolutely needed, progressive organizations would be smart to use the 501(c)(4) platform to promote their cause while also leading by example with regards to donor transparency. After all, just because the law says you don’t have to disclose donors, there is nothing prohibiting 501(c)4 organizations from doing so.

Congress

National Review: No, Representative Rice, the NRA are not terrorists

By Kevin D. Williamson

Contrary to the ignorant assumptions that inform our political discourse, the NRA is a relatively small spender when it comes to campaign donations and lobbying, being at the moment the 460th-largest campaign donor and the 156th-highest-spending lobbyist. The NRA has long excelled at its core mission because it excels at arguing its case in public and at delivering the votes, particularly in tight House races. And it is for this – for ordinary political activism of precisely the sort that the First Amendment exists to protect – that Representative Rice and others seek to have the NRA punished as a criminal organization…

Democratic activists such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have for years been calling for the prosecution of people holding nonconformist ideas about climate change as criminals, and Democratic attorneys general from New York to California have obliged. Every Democrat in the Senate joined Harry Reid in a vote to repeal the First Amendment in order to permit the federal licensure of political speech and the federal prohibition of certain kinds of political speech…

Representative Rice proposes to use the police powers of the state to punish her political opponents for their successful communication of their views – a gross abuse of her high office and the awesome power that goes along with it. 

The States

Texas Monitor: Special session winds to close, so do chances at ethics reform

By Johnny Kampis

After House Republicans Sarah Davis of West University Place and Lyle Larson of San Antonio held a press conference earlier this month urging the governor to add ethics reform to his special session agenda, governor’s office spokesman John Wittman accused the lawmakers of showboating…

Clean Elections Texas is part of a group that calls itself “Integrity Texas,” a liberal organization that includes Public Citizen, Texans for Public Justice, and Common Cause Texas.

That group supports such legislation as Davis’ HB 15, which would slow the “revolving door” in which lawmakers become lobbyists by requiring a “cooling off” period of one session…

Davis is also pushing legislation that would prohibit direct political contributions to lawmakers and members of the executive branch during all legislative sessions. Such donations are now banned during regular sessions, but not special sessions.

HB 33, from Larson, would make contributors who give more than $2,500 to the governor ineligible to be appointed to state boards and commissions…

But Abbott must add that legislation to the agenda of the special session for the bills to have a chance to become law, and Wittman said Thursday “don’t hold your breath.”

Detroit News: Courts uphold free speech on campuses

By Rep. John Reilly

This past month, yet another Michigan school, this time Macomb Community College, was sued for violating the speech rights of students. Campus police ticketed students for failing to obtain a required permit to demonstrate in public outdoor areas of the college.

The college has no case. Its policy is blatantly unconstitutional. The courts have made it absolutely clear in case after case that public college campuses are open to the public. Again and again, courts have had to patiently spell out to these schools that students have the right to free speech on their grounds.

“Open, outdoor areas of public campus are designated public forum as to students.” (U. of Cincinnati Young Americans for Liberty v. Williams, 2012)

“The mere fact that the University owns all the land within its boundaries does nothing to change the equation. First Amendment protections and the requisite forum analysis apply to all government-owned property; and nowhere is it more vital … than on a public university campus …” (Roberts v. Haragan, 2004).

Los Angeles Daily News: Disclose Act, now broken apart, still vital for public trust

By Thomas Elias

The advent of social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram provides Americans and others with more information than ever, but much of it is bogus, what President Trump likes to call “fake news.”

Especially since outfits like Scripps Howard and the Knight publishing company disappeared from the landscape, along with many family-owned newspapers, there’s less of the reliable, hard news that reporters can gather only by expending shoe leather and persistence.

And since the 2010 Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, it’s been difficult for anyone to know the true funders of the frequent messages, commercials and other ads conveyed via television, radio, social media and those newspapers that still try to inform the public.

That’s why for much of this decade, the most important proposal before the California Legislature has been a bill known as the Disclose Act, most actively pushed by an organization called the Clean Money Campaign.

San Francisco Chronicle: Special interests buy politicians’ attention through special causes

By Editorial Board

To see how special interests continue to find ways around campaign finance laws, look no further than their contributions to politicians’ favorite causes.

There are limits on individual campaign donations, but none on “behested payments” – donations made at politicians’ request for a legislative, governmental or charitable purpose. So well-funded groups, be they casinos, unions or enormous telecom corporations, can contribute as much as they like to politicians’ special interests…

Many behested payments go to perfectly reasonable causes, and the money is spent on perfectly reasonable charitable expenses. But the critics who feel this kind of spending is inappropriate are right.

The relationship between a politician and a favored charity is often mutually beneficial.

New York Post: De Blasio negotiates for city funds, then goes on vacation

By Rich Calder

Just days after convincing the Campaign Finance Board to award him an extra $1.6 million in public matching funds for what he called a tough re-election race, Mayor de Blasio headed to Rhode Island Monday for a family vacation.

“It’s unfortunate that the mayor made a strong case for additional matching funds by saying he had a competitive race and then took off on vacation,” said Dick Dadey, director of the government watchdog Citizens Union.

“The argument that he needed it for a competitive election doesn’t hold together very well.”…

CFB rules stipulate that matching funds will be capped at 25 percent if a candidate faces minimal opposition, but de Blasio argued that his chief Democratic rival, former Councilman Sal Albanese, posed a serious threat…

Records show that the mayor had $4.9 million in his campaign account as of last week after receiving the matching funds. Albanese, who has yet to qualify for matching monies, had just $5,397.

“He has more than enough money to get his message out,” Albanese said, charging that de Blasio is taking taxpayers for a ride. “His [public funds] could have gone towards improving city services.”

Billboard: Facebook Wins Big Free Speech Ruling in Fight With Country-Rap Artist

By Ashley Cullins

The musician says the page not only prompted threats, but also caused Nielsen SoundScan and the Dallas Cowboys to back out of lucrative deals with him. Knight asked the social media giant to take it down, along with two other pages, and sued after it refused, claiming the site was violating its own terms of service.

Facebook turned to the Communications Decency Act and California’s anti-SLAPP statute, which brings an early end to lawsuits arising from constitutionally protected activities like free speech unless the plaintiff can show a likelihood of prevailing. The trial court dismissed claims relating to breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation and interference with prospective economic relations, finding that that “Facebook’s website and the Facebook pages at issue are ‘public forums'” and the content of the pages address issues of public interest…

The California appeals court sided with the social media giant Wednesday, affirming in part and reversing in part the lower court’s decision and instructing it to grant the anti-SLAPP motion and strike the complaint in its entirety.