November 14, 2023

In the News

Wall Street Journal: Hawley Aims at Wokeness and Misses

By Bradley A. Smith

.....Conservatives celebrated when the Supreme Court ruled, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), that corporations have a right to free speech. Now Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) has joined Bernie Sanders to propose legislation that defies Citizens United.

Mr. Hawley is up front about wanting to silence publicly traded corporations because he doesn’t like what some have to say…

Mr. Hawley’s concerns about corporate wokeism influencing the culture are unrelated to Citizens United. Publicly traded corporations spend almost nothing on the type of campaign speech that Citizens United allowed. For-profit corporations account for roughly 2% of total political spending.

Boston Globe (LTE): Still wrangling over corporate personhood

By Bradley A. Smith

.....I was pleased to read Jeff Jacoby’s thoughtful column criticizing Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, for a misguided attempt to “overturn” Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (“A GOP senator joins the anti-Citizens United chorus,” Ideas, Nov. 5). I was also happy to see myself cited in the piece, since I believe that Citizens United is a positive for democracy.

In addition to the blatant constitutional defects in his bill, Hawley gets several practical considerations wrong. First, he mistakenly believes that his effort would prevent “woke” corporations from lobbying federal policy makers. In fact, Citizens United is about political speech aimed at persuading the public, not lobbying expenditures. In a world without Citizens United, companies would still be free to spend millions on lobbying.

Business Today: NC gets an “F” for failing to protect citizens from speech-suppressing lawsuits

.....North Carolina is one of 17 states without a law protecting against costly, meritless, speech-suppressing lawsuits, earning it an “F” grade from the Institute for Free Speech.

IFS’s new Anti-SLAPP Report Card ranks states on the basis of legal protections against “strategic litigation against public participation.”

FEC

Washington Examiner: 'New era' at FEC to end partisan fishing expeditions

By Paul Bedard

.....Republicans and reform-conscious Democrats on the Federal Election Commission have finally voted to put an end to open-ended investigations by agency attorneys that are always costly and sometimes politically charged.

In a commonsense proposal, a majority of the commissioners this month decided to take control of all investigations into election fraud, a responsibility that over time they had ceded to FEC attorneys.

The move comes in the wake of some high-profile embarrassments and revelations of investigations by FEC staff that some commissioners didn’t even know about.

“The law is clear that the commission is the investigator and its legal staff assists the commission in conducting its investigations,” said former FEC Chairman Lee Goodman, now an elections attorney.

“Historically, there are many examples where the staff has treated the commission’s decision to open an investigation into a limited topic as an open-ended fishing expedition into highly sensitive political associations exceeding the scope intended by the commission, often without the commission’s knowledge. So the commission had good reason to institute controls over the conduct of its own investigations,” he told Secrets.

Congress

The Hill: House Democrat pair introduce bill to require limits, disclosures for donations to inaugural committees

By Miranda Nazzaro

.....Democratic Reps. John Sarbanes (Md.) and Mary Gay Scanlon (Penn.) on Wednesday introduced a bill that would require limits and disclosures for donations to inaugural committees.

The bill, titled the Inaugural Fund Integrity Act, is aimed at addressing the “loopholes” in the current Inaugural Committee guidelines that “allow for abuse of funds,” according to a release from Sarbanes’s office.

Unlike campaign committees, which are prohibited from accepting contributions directly from corporations, inaugural committees currently can accept unlimited amounts of money from virtually anyone, including companies.

The bill would require the quick and full disclosure of expenditures and contributions that total more than $1,000, along with imposing a $50,000 limit on contributions. The legislation would also prohibit donations from foreign nationals and corporate and super-PAC contributions, as well as “straw man” donations, which is when a donor avoids legal limits on political donations by sending money using other people’s names.

CNN: Senate Democrats back down on Supreme Court ethics subpoenas after GOP threats

By Ariane de Vogue, Morgan Rimmer, Devan Cole, and Ted Barrett

.....The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee backed down on a planned vote Thursday to subpoena two major conservative players close to Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in their probe into ongoing ethics controversies at the Supreme Court.

The subpoenas would target Leonard Leo, the co-chairman of the board of the influential Federalist Society, and Republican donor Harlan Crow, arguing the information was necessary to better understand whether specific individuals and groups have used undisclosed gifts to gain access to the justices.

The Courts

Courthouse News: Fifth Circuit sides with Louisiana attorney in First Amendment row with state bar

By Cameron Langford

.....The Louisiana State Bar strayed from its core role by giving its members wellness advice and promoting Pride Month, a Fifth Circuit panel ruled Monday, exempting an attorney who took issue with these activities from having to join the organization or pay it dues.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Court Strikes Down Ban on Town Employees Displaying "Thin Blue Line" Flag While on Town Property

By Eugene Volokh

.....A Springfield Township (Pennsylvania) resolution provides:

Detroit Free Press: Lawsuit alleges LGBTQ+ flag ban on Hamtramck city property is unconstitutional

By Niraj Warikoo

.....A federal lawsuit alleges the city of Hamtramck violated the U.S. Constitution when it passed and enforced a law this summer that banned the display of LGBTQ+, ethnic and political flags on government property.

Reporters Committee: NewsNation journalist Evan Lambert sues law enforcement officials over arrest at train derailment press conference

.....Evan Lambert, a journalist for NewsNation, filed a lawsuit on Monday against local government entities and several law enforcement officials in Ohio stemming from his unlawful arrest earlier this year while covering a press conference about the derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.

DOJ

New York Times: F.B.I. Seizes Eric Adams’s Phones as Campaign Investigation Intensifies

By William K. Rashbaum, Dana Rubinstein and Michael Rothfeld

.....The warrant also inquired about Mr. Adams’s campaign’s use of New York City’s generous public matching program, in which New York City offers an eight-to-one match of the first $250 of a resident’s donation.

The States

Maine Public: Question 2 passes, banning foreign electioneering in Maine

By Kaitlyn Budion

.....A ban on election spending by foreign government-owned organizations was overwhelmingly approved by voters Tuesday night.

With the passage of Question 2, Maine closes a loophole in state law, preventing organizations owned by a foreign government from spending money on state referendum elections.

Intercept: Oregon Police Obsessively Spied on Activists for Years, Even After Pipeline Fight Ended

By Natasha Lennard

.....The emails show that, from 2016 to 2023, the Medford Police Department coordinated heavy-handed police responses to peaceful rallies and protests, tracked activist groups’ social media pages, and consistently treated typical, First Amendment-protected activity as a potential crime worthy of law enforcement scrutiny.