May 10, 2024

In the News

Politico: Trump pressed oil executives to give $1 billion for his campaign, people in industry say

By Ben Lefebvre

.....Former President Donald Trump asked oil industry executives last month to donate $1 billion to aid his campaign to retake the White House, three people familiar with the conversation told POLITICO — a request that campaign finance experts said appeared troubling but is probably legal.

The request, first reported Thursday by The Washington Post, occurred during a meeting of industry executives at the former president’s home in Palm Beach, Florida…

“Isn’t that what campaigning is?” Bradley Smith, chair of the Institute for Free Speech and former chair of the Federal Election Commission, said of Trump’s ask to the oil executives.

“Certainly if one is an office holder and one promises a specific federal action like, ‘You’ll get this permit,’ or something like that, you have an issue. But to make a sort of general pledge, ‘You’ve got to give me lots of money because I’m really going to help out your business,’ it’s fine,” he said.

Smith added: “It’s a minor difference of degree from Joe Biden saying, ‘Hey, young people, vote for me, I’m going to forgive your student loans.’”

The Courts

Fox 43: Camp Hill Borough's political yard sign ordinance appeal rejected again by courts

By Leah Hall

.....Camp Hill residents can continue to display as many temporary political yard signs as they'd like during election season. 

An ordinance passed by the Camp Hill Borough Council in October of 2022 stated that residents could only display two political signs in their yards within 60 days of an election. Anyone caught violating the ordinance would face a $1,000 fine. 

A federal judge ruled against the sign ordinance in March of 2023 after a group of residents petitioned the court, arguing the ordinance limited their freedom of expression.

The council argued that the sign ordinance "seeks to protect our community’s beauty and enhance public safety by reducing clutter, distractions, and hazards."

However, Judge Jennifer Wilson of the Middle District Court of Pennsylvania granted summary judgment on two counts to two plaintiffs.

On May 9, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the District Court's ruling.

WCPO: Did jury in P.G. Sittenfeld case get it wrong? Ex-councilman hopes appeals court frees him from prison

By Paula Christian

.....Attorneys for former Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld asked a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out his public corruption conviction at a hearing on Thursday.

Once a rising political star and favorite to be Cincinnati mayor, Sittenfeld is now serving a 16-month sentence for bribery and attempted extortion…

Sittenfeld’s attorney, Yaakov Roth, warned of the widespread implications on political fundraising if the appeals court let this conviction stand. Roth, a partner at the Washington D.C. law firm of Jones Day, helped to vindicate former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell from corruption charges.

“There is a real danger of exposing every elected official in the nation to potential prosecution,” said Roth, who argued the government is illegally expanding corruption laws by targeting routine political behavior as somehow criminal.

Center Square: Groups sue Minnesota university system, group over 'coerced' speech

By Scott McClallen

.....Two groups sued a group called Students United, the St. Cloud State University and SCSU’s responsible administrators for allegedly violating college students’ First Amendment rights.

On Thursday, the Liberty Justice Center and the Upper Midwest Law Center filed a Lackie v. Students United in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

The Board of Trustees requires all students attending any of the seven universities in the Minnesota State system to be members of and pay fees to Students United.

Students United’s political advocacy includes a project called “Fck Student Debt," which advocates for abolishing all student debt. Students United also advocates for changes to the tax code and election laws.

The lawsuit argues that requiring all students to pay fees to Students United as a condition of enrollment violates their First Amendment rights by compelling students to associate with and pay for political speech and activity.

Election Law Blog: Campaign Finance and “Real” Corruption

By Kunal Dixit and Nicholas Stephanopoulos

.....I just posted this book chapter, forthcoming in a volume on the fiftieth anniversary of Buckley v. Valeo edited by Lee Bollinger and Geoffrey Stone. Here’s the abstract:

Congress

New York Times: After College Presidents, Republicans Are Coming for Liberal Donors

By Michelle Goldberg

.....In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland this week, the Republican senator Josh Hawley demanded a federal investigation into dark money groups subsidizing “pro-terrorist student organizations” holding anti-Israel protests on college campuses. He cited Politico reporting linking big liberal philanthropies to some pro-Palestinian organizers. Open Society Foundations, for example, founded by the oft-demonized George Soros, has given grants to the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace, which has an active university presence. Hawley noted that an I.R.S. ruling denies tax-exempt status to organizations that encourage their members to commit civil disobedience, calling nonprofit funding for the groups behind the anti-Israel demonstrations “almost certainly illegal.”

Even if Garland doesn’t act on Hawley’s request, the attorney general in a second Donald Trump administration probably would. That’s one reason I fear that the backlash to the pro-Palestinian campus movement — which includes lawsuits, hearings and legislation — could help Republicans wage war on progressive nonprofits more broadly.

Free Expression

Los Angeles Times: 'Are you a Zionist?' Checkpoints at UCLA encampment provoked fear, debate among Jews

By Jenny Jarvie

.....Eilon Presman was about 100 feet from the UCLA Palestinian solidarity encampment when he heard the screams: “Zionist! Zionist!”

The 20-year-old junior, who is Israeli, realized the activists were pointing at him.

“Human chain!” they cried.

A line of protesters linked arms and marched toward him, Presman said, blocking him from accessing the heart of UCLA’s campus. Other activists, he said, unfurled kaffiyeh scarves to block his view of the camp.

“Every step back that I took, they took a step forward,” Presman said. "I was just forced to walk away.”

MSN Link

New York Post: Peter Thiel was trapped inside Cambridge University debate hall by anti-Israel protesters

By Ariel Zilber

.....Peter Thiel was reportedly trapped inside a debate hall at Cambridge University in the UK on Wednesday as a crowd of anti-Israel supporters refused to let him leave for about an hour after he was accused of facilitating “genocide” in Gaza.

Thiel, the 56-year-old co-founder and chairman of Palantir, a software company that counts among its clients the Israeli military, was a keynote speaker at an event held at Cambridge Union, the famed debating society, on Wednesday afternoon.

Online Speech Platforms

Washington Post: Social media has played a huge role in the coverage of the Gaza conflict

By Perry Bacon Jr.

.....The past seven months is the latest example of what makes social media so good for the world: It gives individuals and groups who don’t have much formal power a way to challenge the ideas and narratives of those in charge — and on a fairly even playing field. The role of the platform X in elevating voices skeptical of Israel is particularly notable, considering many progressives have stopped using the site after Elon Musk purchased it and took numerous steps to make the platform more palatable to conservatives...

You might say I’m overhyping the influence of Israel’s critics on social media, since I agree with them on the policy. But don’t just take my word for it: listen to what strong defenders of Israel are saying. At an event last weekend in Arizona put on by the McCain Institute, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), in the role of moderator, asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken why Israel wasn’t getting more favorable media coverage. Blinken bluntly stated that the world where everyone gets their news from major daily newspapers and TV networks is over and “the way this has played out on social media has dominated the narrative.”

Donor Privacy

People United for Privacy: Voters Agree: Donations are a Legitimate Form of Political Engagement

By Brian Hawkins

.....Last month, the Rainey Center for Public Policy published a survey conveying voter sentiment towards political engagement in the upcoming presidential election. The results are a repudiation of fearmongering about the role of money in politics, with respondents overwhelmingly favoring political donations as a legitimate form of political engagement, while rebuking doxing and harassment…

These results demonstrate that only a small fraction of radicals support harassment tactics as a form of political engagement. However, donor disclosure laws empower this small minority by providing them with sensitive personal information about donors who support varying causes. As the survey demonstrates, the far majority of Americans have no desire to threaten violence against their political opponents; nonetheless, a small minority are willing to resort to violence, and donor privacy is meant to protect the majority from this small minority of radicals. 

The States

NC Newsline: NC House easily passes “Shalom Act” to enshrine antisemitism definition in state law

By Ahmed Jallow

.....By a vote of 105-4, the North Carolina House on Wednesday passed a bill, dubbed the “Shalom Act,” that would establish a definition of antisemitism in state law.

If the bill becomes law, North Carolina would, by reference, make the “Working Definition of Antisemitism Adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance on May 26, 2016” the state’s official definition of antisemitism.

Under the definition, several types of criticism directed against Israel, such as “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” would be deemed antisemitism.

House Speaker Tim Moore, who is serving as one of the bill’s chief sponsors, said the measure is a response to a rise in hate speech and attacks on Jewish people…

Some of what the definition targets isn’t antisemitism, said Reighlah Collins, Policy Counsel for the ACLU of North Carolina. Rather, she said, it’s “political speech.”

“Any definition of antisemitism that conflates criticism of Israel chills constitutionally protected political speech. This bill would sweep up not just hate speech, but also for political speech, criticism of another government,” Collins said during the Judiciary committee hearing.

Seacoastonline: ACLU backs neo-Nazis' right to post racist banner in Portsmouth, cites First Amendment

.....The American Civil Liberties Union [filed an amicus brief] in the New Hampshire Supreme Court in support of neo-Nazis charged with hanging a white supremacist sign in Portsmouth. The goal, according to ACLU-NH leaders, is to protect free speech rights for everyone.

The racist banner reading "Keep America White" was hung on the Stark Street overpass above Route 1 in July 2022.

“The message involved in this case is hateful and repugnant. But the First Amendment protects hateful and repugnant speech, so that government officials are not empowered to punish speech with which they disagree,” said David Cole, legal director of the ACLU. “We condemn the message, but believe that free speech principles bar the attorney general’s effort to punish it absent specific targeting of an individual.”

Federalist: GOP Speaker Blocks Bill Keeping Foreign Money Out Of Ohio Ballot Measure Campaigns

By Shawn Fleetwood

.....In a gift to Democrats, Ohio’s Republican House speaker blocked legislation that seeks to prohibit the use of foreign money in ballot measure campaigns.