January 2, 2024

In the News

RealClearPolicy: Politicized, Progressive Big Philanthropy

By Michael E. Hartmann

.....Steve Miller’s December 12 RealClearInvestigations article, “How Tax-Exempt Nonprofits Skirt U.S. Law to Turn Out the Democrat Base in Elections,” is both jarring and informative and helps frame many important questions facing philanthropy, conservatism, and conservative philanthropy…

As Institute for Free Speech chair Bradley Smith tells Miller, that progressive grant-recipient groups outnumber, outraise, and outspend conservative entities. Contemporary, politicized Big Philanthropy — as my Giving Review co-editor Bill Schambra has noted — is “an oppressively arid, progressive monoculture” and “[c]onservatives need to face this truth.”

On the day Miller’s article appeared, the Subcommittee on Oversight of the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on the how the growth of the tax-exempt sector is changing the U.S. political landscape. During the generally non-contentious proceeding, members and witnesses floated or endorsed several potential discrete changes to law and regulations on tax-exemption, foreign funding of exempt nonprofits, and the degree to which those groups and their also-exempt funders can engage in voter registration.

The proposed reforms included, among others, the following: (1) banning foreign contributions to tax-exempt nonprofits; (2) curbing contributions to political super PACs from social-welfare nonprofits that accept foreign contributions; (3) barring private foundations and public charities from funding and engaging in voter-registration projects; (4) banning private contributions to state- and local-government election administration; and (5) redesigning Internal Revenue Service Forms 990, including to request and then provide to the public more information about “fiscally sponsored” projects, and 990-PF.

WITF: Taking on the machine: lawmakers try to rein in AI in campaigns

By Ben Wasserstein

.....In a 2022 post related to deep fake laws, conservative think tank Institute for Free Speech argued that “government attempts to outlaw misleading political messages will do far more harm to democracy than the mere existence of such speech.”

The group argues voters can “expose falsehoods and decide the value of political expression themselves.”

Supreme Court

SCOTUSblog (Petitions of the Week): When do legal observers at protests get First Amendment protection?

By Kalvis Golde

.....This week, we highlight petitions that ask the court to consider, among other things, whether words displayed on hats worn at a protest by legal observers – attorneys who document the treatment of demonstrators’ civil rights – can entitle them to sue police who suppressed the rally.

The Courts

Jonathan Turley: Are You in an Anti-Free Speech State? We Now Have The Definitive List

.....The 5th Circuit previously ruled in Missouri v. Biden that administration officials “likely violated” the First Amendment and issued a preliminary injunction banning the government from communicating with social media companies to limit speech.

Not surprisingly, the state of California is leading the effort to get the Supreme Court to reverse a decision enjoining the government from censorship efforts. California has long sought to impose speech limits on doctors, businesses, and citizens to silence opposing viewpoints.

However,  23 Democrat-led states joined this ignoble effort in signing on to the brief of California Attorney General Rob Bonta. The brief lauds past efforts of these states to combat “harmful content” on the Internet and to protect the public from “misleading information” through partnerships with social media companies.

So here is the list to see if you are residing in an anti-free speech state:

Courthouse News: Federal judge denies X Corp. preliminary injunction in free speech case

By Alan Riquelmy

.....A California law requiring large social media companies to issue reports on their moderation policies remains intact, after a federal judge on Thursday denied a preliminary injunction requested by X Corp.

Assembly Bill 587 — which requires those first reports by Jan. 1 — makes social media companies that annually earn over $100 million identify their existing content moderation policies. U.S. District Court Judge William Shubb determined that the law doesn’t violate their First Amendment rights, as X Corp.’s attorneys argued.

“While the reporting requirement does appear to place a substantial compliance burden on social medial companies, it does not appear that the requirement is unjustified or unduly burdensome within the context of First Amendment law,” Shubb wrote in Thursday's order. 

Fox News: DOJ torched after prosecutors announce Sam Bankman-Fried will not face trial on illegal political donations

By Kyle Morris

.....The decision to avoid a second trial charging Sam Bankman-Fried with a conspiracy to make unlawful political donations and bribery of foreign officials has many conservatives up in arms.

Federal prosecutors said Friday that they do not plan to proceed with a second trial against Sam Bankman-Fried, citing public interest in a speedy resolution of the case that has seemingly irritated those who were hoping to see the disgraced FTX founder prosecuted to the fullest extent.

In a Friday letter filed in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said they do "not plan to proceed with a second trial" as "much of the evidence that would be offered in a second trial was already offered in the first trial and can be considered by the Court at the defendant’s March 2024 sentencing."

Free Expression

Reason: October 7: A Turning Point for Free Speech?

By Robert Corn-Revere

.....Freedom of speech on American college campuses is now facing great challenges in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and Israel's bombardment of Gaza. According to some, the outpouring of ugly, inexplicable, and vituperative speech unleashed by these events means that now is the time to abandon the concept of free speech at our universities. Apparently, to these "sunshine constitutional scholars," speech can only be free if it is polite and unchallenging.

Without a doubt, the past two and a half months have been a complete shitshow: clueless students excusing butchery and war crimes; feckless university presidents whose past records exhibit little concern for First Amendment limits now invoking the need to protect free expression; and opportunistic politicians who seemingly lack any understanding of constitutional constraints grandstanding their way through the misery and trying to impose plainly unconstitutional restrictions on student speech.

The States

AZ Mirror: GOP bid to block ‘dark money’ disclosure in 2024 fails

By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy

.....A judge on Friday refused a bid by Arizona Republican legislative leaders to block an anti-dark money law that voters passed in 2022, concluding that their claims that the new state law is unconstitutional don’t pass muster.

House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Peoria, and Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, filed a lawsuit in October alleging that Proposition 211 is unconstitutional because it violated legislative authority. They asked the court to immediately block the law so it could not be used to unveil the sources of campaign spending in the upcoming 2024 election that would have remained anonymous in previous years. 

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, which is charged with enforcing the dark money disclosures, all defended the new law…

In the 12-page ruling, Ryan wrote that Toma and Petersen have not provided sufficient evidence to prove that the act is unconstitutional and that it hamstrings the powers of the legislature. In fact, he noted, Prop. 211 states that it does not prevent lawmakers from making further changes to the law — as long as they don’t loosen disclosure rules or penalties. 

Albany Times-Union: Hochul vetoes controversial campaign finance changes

By Joshua Solomon

.....Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed legislation that would have widened the net of eligible campaign contributions for matching public funds under a new system that is being rolled out in the 2024 elections…

“Signing this bill would effectively reduce the impact of small donors on elections,” Hochul wrote in a veto memo on Wednesday. The legislation is in “direct contravention of the purpose” of the public campaign finance program, she added. 

The legislation would also “add significant costs to the state” that were not budgeted. Hochul did not propose delaying the implementation of the program in her veto message.

The bill would have allowed for the first $250 of any contribution to a campaign in an election cycle to be matched by state funding. Currently, the program only allows matching donations for contributors who gave no more than $250 in a cycle. The amended version would have allowed larger contributions from deep-pocketed donors to receive a taxpayer-funded boost.