April 2, 2024

In the News

National Review: UT Austin Administrators Tried to Punish Professor over Anti-DEI Crusade. He’s Fighting Back

By Abigail Anthony

.....University of Texas at Austin finance professor Richard Lowery has annoyed the university’s administration by publicly criticizing its embrace of diversity, equity, and inclusion and suggesting that administrators exploit their positions for their children’s admission.

Lowery’s crusade did not go unnoticed: Several university administrators — and the university president, Jay Hartzell — responded with a “campaign to silence” the professor, which included threatening his job, salary, professional affiliations, and research opportunities, according to a lawsuit Lowery filed against the administrators.

The Dispatch (via Yahoo): The Rules for Using Campaign Funds on Legal Fees, Explained

By Peter Gattuso

.....[W]hen an elected official or candidate runs afoul of the law, can these political contributions foot the bill for their legal battles?...

Federal regulations stipulate that campaign funds cannot go toward personal expenses but must pertain to the duties of a candidate or officeholder. For example, a candidate may use campaign funds to charter a bus to travel between campaign events, but cannot use those same funds to buy a new sports car.

“The rationale for this prohibition is that you don’t want donors unduly ingratiating themselves with candidates by essentially giving them bribes in the form of personal benefits disguised as campaign contributions,” Eric Wang, a partner at the Gober Group, a law firm specializing in campaign-finance among its areas of practice, and a senior fellow at the Institute for Free Speech, told The Dispatch.

People United for Privacy: Fighting an Invasive Subpoena to Protect Donor Privacy

By Brian Hawkins

.....People United for Privacy Foundation has joined an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court with the Manhattan Institute, Institute for Free Speech, Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project supporting litigation challenging an investigatory subpoena demanding sensitive donor information from First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a faith-based pro-life pregnancy center in New Jersey. The Attorney General of New Jersey issued an investigatory subpoena against First Choice, invoking a novel consumer protection theory to seek expansive disclosure of sensitive internal information from First Choice about its donors, advertisements, personnel, and allied relationships. First Choice is represented by attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom and appealing the subpoena to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Courts

The Hill: Trump fires back after judge expands gag order: ‘This judge should be recused’

By Miranda Nazzaro

.....Former President Trump lashed out against the New York judge overseeing his hush money criminal trial Tuesday, one day after he was hit with a gag order in the case, arguing such an order is not fair when others “can talk about” him.

“I just was informed that another corrupt New York Judge, Juan Merchan, GAGGED me so that I can not talk about the corruption and conflicts taking place in his courtroom with respect to a case that everyone, including the D.A., felt should never have been brought,” Trump wrote Tuesday in a post on Truth Social. “They can talk about me, but I can’t talk about them???”

“That sounds fair, doesn’t it? This Judge should be recused, and the case should be thrown out,” he added. “There has virtually never been a more conflicted judge than this one. ELECTION INTERFERENCE at its worst!”

Justice Juan Merchan issued a ruling Monday night to expand the former president’s gag order to limit his attacks against Merchan’s daughter, Loren, who is a Democratic political consultant.

Slate: 2016 Election Fraudster “Ricky Vaughn” Might Finally Be About to Face the Music

By Richard L. Hasen

.....On Friday, a federal appeals court in New York will consider a case with key implications for the 2024 election. At issue is whether it violates federal law to trick people on social media and elsewhere about when, where, or how to vote, and whether such a law is consistent with the First Amendment. A ruling favoring the government would go a long way toward protecting voters.

Back in 2016, a man named Douglass Mackey, tweeting under the name “Ricky Vaughn,” repeatedly directed messages to Black voters encouraging them to vote by text for Hillary Clinton. The intent was to trick these voters out of their franchise; of course, votes sent by text don’t count. Thousands sent texts to vote. We don’t know how many of them later did not attempt to vote in a permissible way.

Cato: Ninth Circuit: Prop 65 Warnings Can Count As Compelled Speech

By Walter Olson

.....Under the Supreme Court’s commercial speech jurisprudence, businesspeople do not check their First Amendment rights at the gate when they enter the marketplace. In a significant application of this principle, a panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in November that California may be barred from requiring businesses to “disclose” through labeling scientifically dubious and misleading allegations about their products. 

The case arose under California’s unique and burdensome Proposition 65, which I’ve written about many times. Prop 65 requires merchants to post warnings, on labels or public spaces at their business, against product exposures that could cause cancer or birth defects, a list that at various times has included such things as candles, fireplace logs, coffee, French fries, Christmas lights, hammers, billiard cue chalk, matches, grilled chicken, life‐​saving drugs, brass doorknobs, car exhaust in parking garages, and on and on. “Practically speaking,” the law firm Sidley has noted, “Prop 65 creates an ‘over‐​warning’ problem: The law requires warnings for so many products and situations that the warnings themselves become meaningless.” The law is jealously guarded, though, because most of the money from the resulting settlements goes to the lawyers, who form a potent Sacramento lobby against reform.

DHS

Washington Examiner: DHS-tied ‘misinformation’ researcher personally advised Big Tech on content moderation

By Gabe Kaminsky

.....A left-wing researcher who chaired a since-dissolved Department of Homeland Security “misinformation” panel accused of facilitating censorship directly advised social media companies on content moderation policies, she testified to Congress behind closed doors.

Kate Starbird, a professor leading the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public to investigate “disinformation” and “misinformation,” has faced heightened scrutiny from House Republicans for her roles with the Election Integrity Partnership, which worked to suppress speech before the 2020 election, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s defunct Misinformation and Disinformation Subcommittee. But Starbird had an even more significant open line than previously known with Big Tech — which apparently sought her guidance on approaching how to engage in content moderation.

Free Expression

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Voices for Liberties Papers on Freedom of Speech, Civil Rights, and Social Progress

By David Bernstein

.....I am the Executive Director of the Scalia Law School's Law & Liberty Center. Our most significant current project at the Center is "Voices for Liberty," which our website describes as follows: "While some view freedom of speech as detrimental to minority groups, others champion it as a necessary condition for protecting underrepresented voices. The Liberty & Law Center's Voices for Liberty Initiative examines this intersection, considering the role free speech has played and continues to play in advancing civil rights in America, particularly for historically disadvantaged and/or socially marginalized groups. Our program includes significant research and scholarship, a nationwide speakers bureau, and numerous public events."

I thought I would share the research papers we have sponsored so far:

Daily Caller: Here’s What Universities Should Do To Students And Staff Who Try To Silence Free Speech

By Kris W. Kobach

.....Scholarly investigation and student opportunities to hear speakers aren’t the only victims when speech is silenced on college campuses. Democracy suffers, too. Freedom of speech is vital not just to our system of government but also to society at large, and colleges must do more to protect it. College administrators must make clear that students and staff who attempt to silence free speech will be swiftly and severely punished. Students who cannot abide by these simple rules should be suspended or expelled. And any involved students who are studying under a student visa should have their visas revoked.

BBC: JK Rowling in ‘arrest me’ challenge over hate crime law

By James Cook and Paul Hastie

.....JK Rowling has challenged Scotland's new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence.

The Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh, described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.

She said "freedom of speech and belief" was at an end if accurate description of biological sex was outlawed...

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of "stirring up hatred" relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.

The law does not protect women as a group from hatred.

The Scottish government is expected to include this later in a separate misogyny law.

Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.

Candidates and Campaigns

New York Times: China’s Advancing Efforts to Influence the U.S. Election Raise Alarms

By Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers

.....Covert Chinese accounts are masquerading online as American supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November, according to researchers and government officials.

The accounts signal a potential tactical shift in how Beijing aims to influence American politics, with more of a willingness to target specific candidates and parties, including Mr. Biden.

The States

Texas Tribune: Texas could require social media influencers to disclose paid political posts

By Robert Downen

.....Texas’ top campaign finance watchdog gave initial approval last week to a proposal that would require social media users to disclose if they are being paid to share or create political advertisements.

The Texas Ethics Commission’s action comes just months after The Texas Tribune reported that a secretive and politically-connected company, called Influenceable LLC, paid internet influencers to defend Attorney General Ken Paxton ahead of his Senate impeachment trial.

The proposed rule could be finalized at the commission’s next meeting in June.

Commissioners did not mention Influenceable by name at their March 20 meeting. But the agency’s general counsel, James Tinley, noted that the rule change was in response to “at least one business” that paid social media users for undisclosed political messaging.

“It is not a hypothetical,” he said. “There is at least one business whose business model now is to do just that.”