The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech April 18, 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]. New from the Institute for Free Speech Victory: Florida Elections Commission Pays $175k in Attorney’s Fees, Stops Punishing Political Speech .....School board candidates are now free to state their political affiliation without fear of being fined by the Florida Elections Commission (FEC). This positive development for free political speech in Florida comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by Kells Hetherington and litigated by attorneys at the Institute for Free Speech, a nonpartisan First Amendment advocacy organization that defends political speech rights. The FEC fined Kells Hetherington, a then-candidate for the Escambia County School Board for merely stating that he is a “lifelong Republican” in a nonpartisan election. Hetherington and the Institute for Free Speech then successfully challenged the Florida law the commission used to punish Hetherington’s protected political speech... To read more about the case, Hetherington v. Madden, click here. To read Judge Rodgers’ opinion, click here. Supreme Court Law360: Libertarian Org Asks Supreme Court To Review AB 5 By Abby Wargo .....Libertarian public interest organization Pacific Legal Foundation urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a lawsuit challenging a California law establishing a strict test for employee classification, saying the law allows the state "strangle constitutional rights amid a tangle of regulations and exemptions,” Pacific Legal said in its brief. [Ed. note: Read our petition in Mobilize the Message, LLC v. Bonta, here. Learn more about the case here.] The Courts Washington Post: This Jan. 6 case could make U.S. politics even worse By Jason Willick .....The most consequential [legal question from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot] is the meaning that courts assign to a federal “obstruction of an official proceeding” statute. The Justice Department has already used the statute to charge roughly 300 of 1,000 riot defendants. For months, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has been weighing whether that is a legitimate use of the law, which carries up to a 20-year penalty. The court’s decision, released last Friday, was a mess. Prosecutors technically won United States v. Fischer by a 2-1 vote, but each judge wrote a separate opinion interpreting the law differently — a split that invites Supreme Court review. If the courts ultimately greenlight the Justice Department’s novel and sweeping interpretation of the obstruction law, they’ll be blessing a significant expansion of the federal government’s power to punish political activity it opposes. Come on, you might say. No need for a parade of horribles. Legitimate “political activity” is easily distinguishable from the Jan. 6 violence. Here’s the problem: The statute in question has no violence requirement, nor any requirement that a defendant attempted to do anything so radical as overturn an election. It was passed after the 2001 Enron Corp. scandal to make sure prosecutors had the tools to pursue accountants who destroyed documents sought by investigators. Washington Post: Loudoun schools’ bias-reporting system might violate free speech, court says By Rachel Weiner and Karina Elwood .....A program intended to address discrimination at Loudoun County Public Schools might violate the First Amendment, a federal appellate court ruled Friday, and a lawsuit challenging the program can move forward. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the “Bias Incident Reporting System,” which allows students to anonymously report alleged incidents of bias and request an administrative investigation, could have a “chilling effect” on conservative students who describe their views on race and gender as unpopular. FEC Daily Signal: Election Oversight That America’s Next President Should Champion By Fred Lucas .....When the next president takes office in January 2025, he or she will have the opportunity to reform the Federal Election Commission, which governs campaign spending and fundraising and has significant authority over activity protected by the First Amendment. The terms of five of the six FEC members either will expire or be about to expire at that time, setting up a promising opportunity for the next conservative president. The reforms should include removing the Federal Election Commission’s independent litigation authority and directing the U.S. attorney general to defend FEC decisions; restricting the time a commissioner may remain after his term expires; and defending the FEC’s current bipartisan, six-member structure, according to The Heritage Foundation’s new book “Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise.” Fox News: DCCC, Marc Elias' firm accused of 'apparent civil violations' of federal election law By Houston Keene and Joe Schoffstall .....An anti-Biden political action committee filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging "apparent civil violations" of election law between the House Democrats’ campaign arm and top liberal lawyer and former Hillary Clinton attorney Marc Elias’ law firm. Fox News Digital exclusively obtained the complaint filed by the Committee to Defeat the President as well as their letter to Justice Department election crimes branch Director Robert Heberle regarding the allegations against the DCCC and Elias Law Group. Counsel for the Committee to Defeat the President Dan Backer, who sent the letter to the DOJ, told Fox News Digital for "years, the infamous Marc Elias and the corrupt Democrats in his orbit have violated federal campaign finance laws, and it’s high time to hold them accountable." Cato: The Trump Indictment Reminds Us That Campaign Finance Regulation Should Not Exist By Jeffrey Miron and Jacob Winter .....Proponents of campaign finance regulation assert that contributions affect a candidates’ electoral chances; that contributions influence the policies candidates support; that this influence is undesirable; and that regulation successfully limit this influence. Each of these claims is problematic. In a democracy, candidates cannot support policies that are significantly out of step with a majority of their constituents. Also, it is unclear whether contributions influence positions or certain positions attract contributions. Many positions that attract contributions have substantial support, like environmentalism. Plus, regulation is not successful at “getting money out of politics.” Even if the law were to prohibit corporations or people from spending money to explicitly support a candidate, they could spend money to support policies that align with certain candidates. If the law banned spending that supports specific policies, that would blatantly violate free speech... Finally, campaign finance regulation, like the laws against business fraud at issue in the Trump case, allow government prosecutors to choose targets based on political pressures (as many have suggested in this case). Whether accurate or not, the appearance of political influence made possible by campaign finance regulation reduces confidence in the criminal justice system. Free Expression New York Times: The Moral Center Is Fighting Back on Elite College Campuses By David French .....Free speech is indispensable to the American idea. It protects us from tyranny more thoroughly and effectively than any other constitutional right. As Frederick Douglass proclaimed after his own brush with mob censorship, “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.” America’s most elite academic institutions can, in fact, demonstrate conviction. The “passionate intensity” of the extremes remains, but the center can hold. Douglass was correct. Free speech is the “dread of tyrants,” and sustaining that freedom — against left-wing protests and right-wing lawmakers — will preserve America’s democratic experiment. There is no path to American equality or justice absent the freedom of speech. The Hill: Florists’ free speech: Liberals in Tennessee appear to be making the case for conservative justices By Jonathan Turley .....The owners [of a flower shop] are at the center of a national controversy after refusing to provide decorations for a GOP event featuring former President Donald Trump, former Vice President Michael Pence, and other Republicans. They further urged other businesses to deny future services to the Republican Party over gun control. Some liberals are ecstatic and heaped praise on the shop. For many, however, this is a rather incongruous arrangement. Many liberal pundits oppose religious businesses like bakeries in refusing to serve same-sex weddings and oppose the Supreme Court’s recognition of free speech rights for businesses generally. Indeed, if liberals now favor such denials of service for political or religious reasons, they are going to love what is coming in a case called 303 Creative v. Elenis... I entirely support them both — not because I agree with their view of conservatives or Republicans; rather, I have long maintained that there is a free speech right for businesses to decline to create expressive products for some customers based on political or religious objections. The States AZ Central: New Arizona law makes it easy for extremists to harass regular donors like you By Jon Gabriel .....Sold as the Voters’ Right to Know Act, it required entities and persons making independent expenditures of more than $50,000 on a statewide campaign or $25,000 on a local campaign to disclose the names of the money’s original sources. It promised to end “dark money,” so how bad could it be? Most Arizonans aren’t sending out campaign checks for tens of thousands of dollars. Besides, millionaires buying political ads are already disclosed to the public. But the rich donors aren’t the target. You are. Proposition 211 requires the exposure of much smaller donors who happen to give to nonprofit organizations. If these “entities” spend money on a campaign, they need to track down and disclose the original donors. That includes their home addresses. So, if a young attorney donates $5,000 to a pro-choice organization, her name must be released publicly. What if she’s trying to make partner at a socially conservative firm? Too bad; she’ll be outed. State law requires it. Must Read Alaska: Anchorage Assembly may crack down on political speech by labeling it ‘hate’ By Suzanne Downing .....A resolution to be considered at Tuesday’s Anchorage Assembly meeting appears to give the Assembly the ability to end public comment at meetings if the members of the body deem the comments to be hateful. It also may give the Assembly authority to crack down on political speech in general in the city, by labeling it “disinformation,” “misinformation,” or informed by QAnon, a conspiracy subset. It could even go farther, and tacitly give the Assembly permission to sanction or punish speech. If someone challenges the municipal election methods or results, that person may have his or her microphone cut during a meeting, or the Assembly chair could order them arrested for fomenting hate or violence. 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." The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the First Amendment rights to freely speak, assemble, publish, and petition the government. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. 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