In the News
Washington Examiner: Democrats push unconstitutional anti-free speech election law
By Bradley A. Smith
The Democratic Party’s election overhaul bill, S. 1, includes numerous provisions of dubious constitutionality, but one in particular stands out. Its regulations on websites and media outlets have already been struck down by a federal court.
Just 16 months ago, in Washington Post v. McManus, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held unconstitutional a Maryland scheme nearly identical to provisions of S. 1. The state had tried to ban Russian memes by requiring internet platforms to build databases containing vast amounts of information about every political ad and ad buyer on their websites. In the name of fighting foreign interference, the state had imposed severe burdens on its own citizens ability to speak out. The courts were not fooled. A coalition of local media sued, arguing that the law violated their First Amendment rights. The government can’t force newspapers to report information about their sources; how can it force them to report entire databases of information about their online advertisers?
The 4th Circuit observed that Maryland’s law “is a content-based law that targets political speech and compels newspapers, among other platforms, to carry certain messages on their websites. In other words, Maryland’s law is a compendium of traditional First Amendment infirmities.” Put simply, the law was an unconstitutional absurdity.
Yet, nearly identical provisions are now a major component of S. 1.
Congress
Law & Liberty: Of, By, and For the Party
By John O. McGinnis
The most obviously partisan element of [H.R. 1] is the decision to transform the Federal Election Commission from a bipartisan to a partisan commission. Currently, the FEC has six commissioners that are equally divided between the two major parties. That equal division is unusual among federal agencies and not infrequently leads to deadlocks. But no law is as subject to abuse as election law, particularly because abuse of election law can help entrench the abusing party in power. And the FEC is charged with regulating speech, one of our most precious liberties, underscoring the need for bipartisan agreement before curtailing political debate.
H.R. 1 would instead reduce the commission to five members with an effectively partisan majority. It is true that the fifth member would have to be an independent, but that would be no bar to giving free rein to partisanship. President Biden would be able to appoint an “independent” in the mold of Bernie Sanders who is aligned with the objectives of the Democratic Party and get a first-mover advantage to entrench Democrats in power for a generation…
The bill also imposes new restrictions on speech, some of which are also unconstitutional. Its overall enthusiasm for speech regulation is captured by its expansion of the concept of “electioneering communication” to mean any communication that that mentions a federal official.
The Hill: H.R. 1/S. 1: Democrats defend their majorities, not honest elections
By Steven Law
[One] way S. 1 protects Congress’ new management is by insulating incumbents from accountability for their legislative actions. Today, issue advocacy groups can criticize elected officials on policy and urge them to change course without jeopardizing their tax status or donor confidentiality. Under S. 1, however, these same groups may risk having their donors dumped on the public file and exposed to the cancel culture if they ran even a single ad that appeared to “promote, attack, support or oppose” a member of Congress. The American Civil Liberties Union has said that such broad language would “unconstitutionally chill the speech of issue advocacy groups” and invade the “vital associational privacy rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.”…
Lastly, S. 1 would hand politicians government-funded “stimmy” checks matching their low-dollar contributions on a 6:1 basis. In the 2020 election cycle, the Democrats’ low-dollar online platform ActBlue raised $5.1 billion; the GOP’s online startup WinRed raised $2.1 billion. Let’s assume both platforms raised half their money in donations of $200 or less (the threshold to qualify for S. 1’s match). Had S. 1 been in place in 2020, ActBlue candidates would have gotten an extra $15.3 billion in federal cash, compared to $6.3 billion for Republicans. Democrats worried about WinRed’s rapid growth would have a government-guaranteed escalator to keep them far ahead of the GOP for years to come.
PACs
By Kayla Epstein and Dave Levinthal
Visa’s political action committee has resumed its political giving after a much-publicized halt following the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol, donating $139,000 to members of Congress and other political committees on both sides of the aisle, federal records show…
“It shows what these companies are all about,” said Adav Noti, senior director of trial litigation for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, which advocates for stronger campaign finance regulations. “The corporations seem to feel so pressured to contribute to sitting members that they can’t even adhere to the symbolic messages they made” in January.
Noti added that he expects other companies will follow Visa’s lead and resume political giving sooner rather than later.
“If their competitor starts engaging in pay-to-play, they’re of course going to do it, too,” he said.
Bloomberg Government: JetBlue Cites Business Ties in Donations to Election Objector
By Kenneth P. Doyle and Mary Schlangenstein
JetBlue Airways Corp. is defending its decision to make a PAC contribution to a lawmaker who objected to the presidential vote certification in January, saying it was resuming donations to candidates who are relevant to its business.
The company had “temporarily paused candidate contributions to understand how PAC contributors wanted to move forward in the current political climate,” said a statement, noting the corporate political action committee’s money comes from voluntary employee contributions. “We found, like the public in general, that contributors have a wide range of opinions and beliefs about current issues.” …
Critics have called on JetBlue and other companies to continue refraining from support of lawmakers who objected to the presidential vote. “JetBlue’s decision to pause it’s corporate PAC giving was nothing more than a meaningless PR attempt to avoid scrutiny and save face,” said a statement from End Citizens United, a PAC that supports Democrats and works for tougher campaign finance laws.
Online Speech Platforms
Daily Wire: I’m Launching An Investigation Into Big Tech Censorship. Here’s Why.
By Todd Rokita
As Indiana’s Attorney General, I’m launching investigations into Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter to examine ways in which their behavior potentially has harmed consumers in our state.
One of my express duties as Attorney General is to protect consumers from harm caused by deceptive, unfair, or abusive business practices. In a free society, few assets are more important to citizens than access to information and the opportunity to express political viewpoints in meaningful forums…
In modern times, social media platforms have become the foremost outlets through which average citizens express either their consent or objection to government policies.
These methods give citizens not only the chance to speak, but a chance to be heard — and a chance to rally behind elected officeholders and other public figures who represent their values.
We all can agree that government is constitutionally prohibited from suppressing political speech — that’s First Amendment 101 — while businesses have rights to regulate the kinds of speech they accommodate on their properties.
But digital behemoths such as Facebook, Twitter and others are unique. They have monopolistic power to control much of the nation’s information access and political dialogue. We therefore must sound an alarm when they use this power in a discriminatory way to suppress certain political views.
Washington Post: Facebook and Twitter must ban all anti-vaccine accounts
By Letitia James and William Tong
Anti-vaccine disinformation that continues to be disseminated unchecked on social media threatens to prolong our recovery and poses a grave threat to the health and safety of millions of Americans.
Facebook and Twitter have instituted a number of policies that have helped to slow the spread of dangerous vaccine disinformation on their platforms, yet these policies have been inadequately and inconsistently applied. The solution is not complicated. It’s time for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to turn off this toxic tap and completely remove the small handful of individuals spreading this fraudulent misinformation…
As attorneys general, the safety and well-being of the families in our states are our top priority.
The Wrap: YouTube Purges Florida Governor Video Over Claims Children Don’t Need to Wear Masks
By Sean Burch
YouTube has deleted a video in which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a handful of medical experts questioned the effectiveness of having children wear masks to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The video, which was removed on Wednesday, was of a recent roundtable discussion DeSantis moderated on the global response to the pandemic. DeSantis was joined by Oxford epidemiologist Dr. Sunetra Gupta, Harvard professor Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and Dr. Scott Atlas and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford University. The clip was posted by the American Institute for Economic Research…
A YouTube rep confirmed to TheWrap on Thursday the video was removed due to multiple instances where the doctors said children didn’t need to wear masks.
Washington Post: Civil rights groups flagged dozens of anti-Muslim pages and groups to Facebook that stayed up, lawsuit alleges
By Elizabeth Dwoskin
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was “making false and deceptive statements” when he told Congress that the company removes content that violates its hate-speech rules, a lawsuit alleges.
The suit, filed Thursday in D.C. Superior Court, alleges that since 2017, civil rights groups and other experts have brought hundreds of anti-Muslim groups and pages on the platform to Facebook’s attention, but that the company has failed to penalize more than half of them.
It also alleges that Facebook and its top executives violated the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act, under which it is illegal for a company to make material misrepresentations about a good or service. Civil rights group Muslim Advocates, the law firm Gupta Wessler and University of Chicago law professor Aziz Z. Huq brought the suit.
The States
WMUR: House votes to scrap voluntary campaign spending limits, change maximum contribution amounts
By John DiStaso
The state’s longstanding but little used voluntary campaign spending limits system would end and caps on contributions to candidates and political committees would be substantially changed under a campaign finance reform bill passed on a roll call of 196-173 by the New Hampshire House on Thursday.
Under current law, candidates who have agreed to campaign spending limits are rewarded by being allowed to accept larger individual contributions than they would if they had not agreed to the limit. But no candidate for a major office has volunteered to abide by the spending limits for many years.
House Bill 263 would do away with the voluntary spending limit system, first enacted more than 30 years ago.
Contribution limits are also changed under the bill…
Rep. Russell Muirhead, D-Hanover, said Democrats are concerned that the bill, if enacted, would increase the cost of campaigns for all offices and would invite outside group to donate to candidates and to bundle contributions to candidates.
Washington Post: Virginia’s statewide candidates should commit to opposing ‘cancel culture’
By Dustin Siggins
The right to free speech is threatened across the country and in [Virginia]. Kentucky Republicans are pushing a bill to ban insulting police. Texas and other states have made it illegal for government contractors to boycott Israel. In 2019, Florida enacted a law banning criticism of Israel in schools. Meanwhile, some are urging cable providers to cancel Fox News and other conservative media, and lawsuits have peppered liberal states that cracked down on religious gatherings during the pandemic.
In Virginia, Loudoun County has been a target for conservative criticism for months. Some of that criticism was overblown and inaccurate, such as the claim that Dr. Seuss was being canceled. However, it was reported last month that the county school district’s Minority Student Achievement Advisory Council demanded that “negative feedback” about the district’s critical race theory courses be quashed. The advisory council quickly issued a statement that looked more like a tactical retreat than a free speech course correction.
Vowing to protect free speech will take political courage, but it’s the right thing to do. Nonprofits, schools, churches and businesses provide critical needs for our state, but government-enforced cancel culture puts them at risk. It does the same for individuals who aren’t able to keep up with our nation’s quickly changing — and often ping-ponging — values.
