March 4, 2024

In the News

Open to Debate (Video): Has Citizens United Undermined Democracy?

.....In a high-stakes presidential election year, in partnership with the Newt and Jo Minow Debate Series at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Open to Debate is taking a look at more than a decade of the Citizens United Supreme Court case. 

Ed. note: On February 24, Eric Wang, pro bono Senior Fellow at the Institute for Free Speech and Partner at The Gober Group, and Floyd Abrams, Senior Counsel at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, argued that Citizens United has not undermined democracy. They debated Francesca Procaccini, Assistant Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University Law School, and Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, Professor of Law at Stetson University.

The Courts

Politico: Pennsylvania man pleads guilty to fraud over phantom Super PAC following POLITICO investigation

By Zach Montellaro

.....A Pennsylvania man on Thursday pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges following a 2020 POLITICO investigation into a super PAC that said it was spending millions of dollars in battleground Senate races but didn’t actually exist.

The Department of Justice on Thursday announced that Christopher Richardson pleaded guilty to two charges stemming from fabricated transactions from a super PAC — one count of making a “false entry in a record” for the falsities submitted to the FEC, and one count of “access device fraud” for credit card fraud. He will be sentenced in June and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for the former charge and 10 years for the latter, but such a severe sentence is unlikely.

A separate release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Washington noted that the “quick fundraising and spending attracted media scrutiny, questioning the veracity of the FEC reports.”

New York Times: He Cursed at a Police Officer. Now He’s Caught in a Free Speech Fight.

By Jesse McKinley

.....In December 2016, Mr. Rupp, a Buffalo-area lawyer, was leaving Chef’s Restaurant, a popular Italian place in the city’s downtown, when he said he saw a black SUV — its lights off — bearing down on two women crossing the street.

The driver came to a halt just short of the women, and then, disaster averted, kept going as Mr. Rupp shouted, “Turn your lights on, asshole!”

Little did the lawyer know that the driver was a Buffalo police officer, Todd C. McAlister, who turned into the parking lot, followed Mr. Rupp and told him that he was being detained. After about a half-hour, which Mr. Rupp spent arguing with the police in the parking lot, he was stunned when the police handed him a ticket for violating the city’s noise ordinance, despite the argument occurring on a nonresidential street near a buzzing freeway.

“Nobody was offended by my noise,” he said, adding: “This was about the content of my speech.”

That interaction on a cold Buffalo night more than seven years ago has set off a winding legal battle that has reached the upper echelons of federal courts. In late January, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Mr. Rupp, 56, could continue a suit against the city and its police commissioner for malicious prosecution, First Amendment retaliation and wrongful arrest.

Congress

Just the News: Democrats vote against personal liability for federal censorship, saying it doesn't go far enough

By Greg Piper

.....The Censorship Accountability Act (HR 4848) is a selective expansion of Section 1983 of the U.S. Code, which created a private right of action against state and local officials for all constitutional violations and dates to Reconstruction.

It would subject federal officials who aren't president or vice president to "reasonable attorney's fees," under court discretion, for victorious plaintiffs. The only approved amendment Thursday was a substitute making punctuation changes.

Sponsoring Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., defended its limitation to the First Amendment as a "test case" to target today's most pressing constitutional violation for the average American, which he said was viewpoint discrimination.

FEC

The Hill: FEC allows candidates to more easily pay themselves from campaign funds

By Taylor Giorno

.....A new rule allowing federal candidates to more easily draw salaries from their campaign funds went into effect Friday.

The new rule aims to remedy a commonly cited barrier to working Americans considering running for office, which is often an all-consuming and expensive endeavor.

“It’s an exciting day in campaign finance world! Today our updated candidate salary regulations are officially in effect!” Federal Election Commission (FEC) Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“Federal candidates can begin to draw salaries from their campaign committees when they file their statement of candidacy with the @FEC at a rate of up to 50% of the minimum US house salary or the average income they earned in the last five years, whichever is lower,” Lindenbaum continued.

Free Expression

The Free Press: If Berkeley Wants to Protect Free Speech It Will Expel Its Rioters

By Greg Lukianoff and Angel Eduardo

.....Any students who took part in the violence should be expelled—assault is a crime and most certainly violates the school’s code of conduct. As for the students who organized the shutdown but did not participate in the violence, they should be punished.

Everyone has a right to due process. But violent rioters have no place at any institution devoted to the fearless pursuit of truth. Certainly not at Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement.

Violence is not extreme speech, but the antithesis of speech—and the antithesis of what higher education is supposed to be all about.

Jonathan Turley: MSNBC Legal Analyst: Free Speech Could Be America’s “Achilles Heel”

.....We have been discussing the alarming shift in higher education in favor of censorship and speech regulations. These voices have been amplified on media platforms like MSNBC which has championed efforts to censor people and groups on social media and other forums. The most recent example is the interview of University of Michigan Law Professor and MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade by Rachel Maddow. In the interview, McQuade explains how the First Amendment is the “Achilles Heel” of the United States and why the public needs to embrace greater limitations on free speech.

The States

Bloomberg Law: Massachusetts Supreme Court Revamps Speech Retaliation Approach

By Allie Reed

.....People hit with retaliatory lawsuits after exercising their First Amendment rights are expected to face a simpler process for defeating meritless cases, under a revised framework the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued Thursday…

“A simplification of our existing anti-SLAPP framework, and one that hews to the statutory language, is necessary to ensure that the legislative intent behind the statute is not undermined by its misapplication,” the justices wrote in the opinion in Bristol Asphalt Co. Inc. vs. Rochester Bituminous Products Inc., one of the decisions laying out the new framework.

Ed. note: Here is the other opinion laying out the new framework.

AZ Mirror: Bid to stop dark money law is dismissed by judge, again

By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy

.....For the second time, a lawsuit asking the courts to block the state from enforcing a law voters approved in 2022 to require the disclosure of the sources of anonymous election spending has been rejected by a judge…

“We respectfully disagree with the judge’s decision and plan to appeal,” Goldwater Institute Senior Attorney Scott Freeman said in a statement to the Arizona Mirror. The Goldwater Institute represents the groups in the suit.  

Arizona Republic: AZ lawmakers want to change college club funding. Students say it limits freedom of speech

By Helen Rummel

.....A new bill looks to change how student clubs are funded on college campuses following heightened tensions on the war in Gaza.

House Bill 2178 would allow college students to pick one or more clubs that they do not want to receive money from their student activity fee. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Alexander Kolodin, was written largely in response to the Scottsdale Republican's concerns about Students for Justice in Palestine and similar advocacy groups.

It’s been met with sharp criticism from students and lawmakers who say it would harm the free exchange of ideas on campus.

Statehouse News Bureau: Ohio Senate passes GOP-backed campaign finance proposal on foreign money

By Sarah Donaldson

.....The Ohio Senate voted 25-7, along party lines, on Wednesday to advance a fast-tracked dark money proposal that bans foreign contributions to campaigns for and against ballot issues in the state.

Senate Bill 215, introduced by Sens. Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) and Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) in January, had its first committee hearing only last Wednesday. Its introduction came two weeks after Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, asked for “immediate action” on the issue in a letter to legislative leaders.

Florida Politics: The end of public campaign finance? Senate approves referendum to repeal standing law

By A.G. Gancarski

.....Voters may soon decide whether to end a program providing matching state funds for candidates that agree to spending limits.

The Senate approved by a 28-11 vote a measure approving a ballot referendum asking voters to weigh in on repealing the Florida Election Campaign Financing Act (FECFA). Accessing that pot of money is one way that candidates who aren’t wealthy can get a leg up to make their cases to the voters.

Sen. Travis Hutson’s measure (SJR 1114) would, if passed, let voters this year decide in a referendum whether they want to end the provision that has been in effect since the Legislature passed it in 1986 — an era in which Florida and its campaign finance looked very different from the way they do today in some ways, but nonetheless saw some dynamics familiar to people of today.