The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech April 3, 2023 Click here to subscribe to the Daily Media Update. This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]. In the News Wall Street Journal: Trump Indictment Is a Perversion of Campaign-Finance Law By Bradley A. Smith .....Was the hush money a campaign contribution? The governing statute, the Federal Election Campaign Act, provides that a contribution is any donation made “for the purpose of influencing any campaign for federal office.” The Trump Organization, says Mr. Bragg, paid Ms. Daniels to prevent revelations that would have hurt Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. Thus the payments were “for the purpose of influencing” a federal election—and, since corporate contributions to a campaign for federal office are illegal, the case is closed. Not so fast. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that because campaign-finance laws infringe on core First Amendment activity, they can’t be dependent on vague, subjective interpretations. Accordingly, the clause “for the purpose of influencing any federal election” is an objective standard. As another section of the statute states, an obligation isn’t a campaign expenditure if it exists “irrespective” of the campaign. In other words, campaign funds pay for campaigning—the campaign manager’s salary, ads, campaign travel, venues for rallies, polling and so on. They don’t pay for personal expenses not created by the act of campaigning, even if the candidate intends for them to benefit the campaign. New from the Institute for Free Speech Updates to the Anti-SLAPP Report Card .....This blog post provides information on states that have either enacted new anti-SLAPP laws or improved existing laws since the February 2022 publication of our Anti-SLAPP Report Card. March 23, 2023: Utah Replaces Weak Law with Uniform Public Expression Protection Act Utah’s previously enacted Citizenship Participation in Government Act earned a “D-“ in our Anti-SLAPP Report Card. In early 2023, the Utah State Legislature passed the Public Expression Protection Act (SB 18) with no opposition, and Governor Spencer Cox signed the bill into law on March 23. Since, as described in the legislation, “[t]his bill enacts the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act,” and hews closely to the model, Utah now will join the handful of states with near-perfect scores under our methodology. The new law not only expands the scope of the statute to cover any exercise of First Amendment rights on a matter of public concern, but also instructs courts to interpret the law broadly to protect such rights. The replaced law only applied to speech narrowly deemed to be an act of “participating in the process of government.” Utah’s Public Expression Protection Act also improves procedural protections by including a mandatory fee-shifting provision so that prevailing defendants may recoup legal costs. Furthermore, the recently adopted statute places the burden of proof on the plaintiff to show that the lawsuit is legitimate. Lawmakers in Utah have vastly upgraded their state’s protections for citizens exercising their right to speak and publish. The new law applies to lawsuits filed on or after May 3, 2023. The Courts Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Douglass Mackey Convicted for Vote-by-Tweet Meme By Eugene Volokh .....Here's the E.D.N.Y. U.S. Attorney's Office press release… For my reservations about the case, see here; for the judge's opinion rejecting Mackey's First Amendment defense, see here. Law & Crime: Dominion wins rare judgment against Fox News on every legal issue but actual malice before blockbuster trial By Adam Klasfeld .....In a “rare” ruling, Dominion Voting Systems scored blockbuster victories against Fox News on multiple issues before their upcoming blockbuster trial next month. The remarkable, 130-page ruling from Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis found that there was no need for a jury to establish that the broadcasts at issue were false... “This is very very rare,” First Amendment expert Jeff Kosseff told Law&Crime. In essence, Kosseff added: “Actual malice is Fox’s only hope.” ... Read the ruling here. Congress Fox News: Wisconsin Republican introduces OMAR Act to prohibit campaign compensation for candidate spouses By Houston Keene .....A Wisconsin Republican congressman has introduced a new bill to increase federal oversight of familial campaign contributions, including for spouses. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., introduced the Oversight for Members And Relatives (OMAR) Act Thursday, named after "Squad" Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., to prohibit campaign compensation from certain committees from going to candidates’ spouses. The OMAR Act would also require the disclosure of campaign compensation to candidates’ immediate family members. Donor Privacy Coeur D'Alene Press: Opinion: PUPF CEO responds to Souza By Heather Lauer .....Mary Souza inadvertently made a strong case in her latest column for why nonprofit donor privacy is an essential First Amendment right to defend. Every year, my organization, People United for Privacy Foundation (PUFPF), pushes back on countless politicians who have an axe to grind with whoever recently opposed them in a policy fight or criticized their views and voting record during an election. Politicians across the country — on both sides of the aisle — push donor disclosure legislation as a way to retaliate against their ideological opponents when they can’t win a public policy debate based on the merits. Idahoans didn’t think Mary represented their views during her last political campaign. She lost, and she’s clearly not happy about that result. But that’s not a legitimate reason for wanting to expose and target Idaho residents who support charities, churches, or advocacy organizations, whether they donate $10 or $10,000 to those causes. Free Expression Tablet: A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century By Jacob Siegel .....In a technical or structural sense, the censorship regime’s aim is not to censor or to oppress, but to rule. That’s why the authorities can never be labeled as guilty of disinformation. Not when they lied about Hunter Biden’s laptops, not when they claimed that the lab leak was a racist conspiracy, not when they said that vaccines stopped transmission of the novel coronavirus. Disinformation, now and for all time, is whatever they say it is. That is not a sign that the concept is being misused or corrupted; it is the precise functioning of a totalitarian system. If the underlying philosophy of the war against disinformation can be expressed in a single claim, it is this: You cannot be trusted with your own mind. The States AP News: Hawaii governor signs 7 government, ethics reform bills By Audrey McAvoy .....Hawaii Gov. Josh Green signed on Friday seven good-government bills drafted in response to news last year that two former lawmakers had accepted bribes in exchange for influencing legislation. One measure, HB137, would require lobbyists to report not only the general subject they are advocating for but the specific bill number or the identification number of the program they discussed with officials… Green also signed HB99, which limits the amount of cash a campaign can accept from a single person during each election period to $100. Lawmakers said cash contributions to political campaigns can be difficult to trace. This measure aims to make violations of campaign finance law easier to detect and prevent. New Jersey Monitor: Campaign finance overhaul lands on Governor Murphy’s desk By Nikita Biryukov .....Lawmakers in both chambers approved a bill Thursday making sweeping reforms to the state’s campaign finance system over the objections of advocates who warned the changes would weaken oversight and do little to make the system more transparent. The bill, which cleared the Senate in a 21-12 vote and the Assembly 42-30, would drastically raise limits on political giving, require some additional disclosure from independent expenditure groups, and cut the time the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission has to investigate violators by 80%, among other things… Assemblyman Lou Greenwald (D-Camden), the Assembly’s majority leader and a chief sponsor of the bill, argued that allowing larger donations to individual candidates would bring more transparency to campaign spending by encouraging donors to give to campaigns that must report the donations, instead of to political groups that can shield donors’ identities. Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. For email filters, the subject of this email will always begin with "Institute for Free Speech Media Update." 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