May 20, 2024

Congress

Roll Call: Senate GOP bill seeks to protect anonymous nonprofit donors

By Caitlin Reilly

.....Republican Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and James Lankford of Oklahoma [introduced] a bill Tuesday that would increase penalties for revealing anonymous donor information from no more than $5,000 to at least $10,000 and up to $250,000. The move comes as House Ways and Means Republicans seek to increase scrutiny of foreign donations to tax-exempt nonprofits.

“Anonymous giving has long been a way for Americans to support philanthropic organizations that rely on generous charitable contributions. In recent years, donor privacy has been threatened on too many occasions,” Young said in a statement. “This legislation will address the disclosure of donor data to better protect both charitable organizations and their donors.”

The legislation also would allow the leak to be prosecuted in the jurisdiction where the affected donor lives. 

The Courts

Bloomberg Law: Texas Pushback on Pro-Palestine Protests Draws Free Speech Suit

By Ryan Autullo

.....Student groups accused Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) of violating the First Amendment by requiring universities to tamp down on what he deems antisemitic speech and calling in state police to break up a string of pro-Palestine campus protests.

Abbott’s deployment of state troopers to dismantle demonstrations at the University of Texas at Austin twice in April constitutes viewpoint discrimination and runs afoul of a state law Abbott championed in 2019 promoting peaceful demonstrations on campuses, the groups said in a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas. Protest disruptions at University of Houston and University of Texas at Dallas are also highlighted in the complaint.

Courthouse News: Businessman, former prosecutor not guilty in Honolulu corruption case

By Keya Rivera

.....A federal jury in Honolulu returned not guilty verdicts across the board Thursday for former city prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, businessman Dennis Mitsunaga and four employees from his firm. The group stood accused of corruption charges stemming from a conspiracy and bribery plot, but the jury exonerated them on every count after a trial…

[D]uring closing statement, Crystal Glendon, the attorney for Sheri Tanaka, accused the state of perverting the spirit of aloha by mischaracterizing Hawaii cultural practices of gift-giving and food-sharing as sinister acts.

Free Expression

Washington Post: The problem with diversity statements — and what to do about them

By The Editorial Board

.....Because the criteria for acceptable DEI statements are often vague, jobseekers must do the work of anticipating the ideological and political preferences of university administrators and faculty, who are disproportionately left-leaning…

[J]obseekers who disagree with the ideological premises of such inquiries have an overwhelming incentive to suppress their true beliefs, or pretend to have the “right” ones, lest they be eliminated from consideration….

The last thing academia — or the country — needs is another incentive for people to be insincere or dishonest. The very purpose of the university is to encourage a free exchange of ideas, seek the truth wherever it may lead, and to elevate intellectual curiosity and openness among both faculty and students. Whatever their original intent, the use of DEI statements has too often resulted in self-censorship and ideological policing. Fundamentally reconsidering them could actually strengthen DEI, by placing it on a more sustainable basis — intellectually and politically.

New York Times: Assange Can Appeal U.S. Extradition, English Court Rules

By Megan Specia

.....A London court ruled on Monday that Julian Assange, the embattled WikiLeaks founder, could appeal his extradition to the United States, a move that opens a new chapter in his prolonged fight against the order in Britain’s courts.

Two High Court judges said they would allow an appeal to be heard on a limited number of issues.

Reason: Vox Wants Progressives To Support Free Speech for the Wrong Reasons

By Emma Camp

.....While Levitz's piece is refreshing, its support for free speech isn't about adopting a new appreciation for the principles of free expression, regardless of political viewpoint. It's about adopting the best policies to protect left-wing ideas.

Save several paragraphs reminding progressives that debate is necessary for finding the truth and that "the more insulated any ideological orthodoxy is from critique, the more vulnerable it will be to persistent errors," Levitz's argument is pragmatic in nature. He spends most of the piece—correctly—arguing that if progressives had been willing to take a stand against censorship of right-wing beliefs, the current norms allowing for the censorship of pro-Palestine activists would not have been set in place. 

However, if your reason to defend speech is purely practical and self-interested, it becomes much easier to indulge in exceptions to your free speech principles. Surely, allowing the censorship of the most offensive, unproductive viewpoints couldn't be used to justify the suppression of your own, much better, ideas, right?

Platformer: How the tech industry soured on employee activism

By Zoë Schiffer

.....Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the corporate response to employee activism over Israel and Gaza: in the past two months alone, Apple allegedly disciplined retail employees for wearing pro-Palestine paraphernalia, Google fired 50 employees in connection with protests about Israel, and Meta removed Workplace posts from employees voicing support for people in Gaza,

It’s no accident that declining tolerance for employees’ political speech has coincided with the tech industry’s self-described era of efficiency. As companies continue to conduct mass layoffs, and the hiring process remains slow and arduous, employers have more leverage than at any time since the pandemic began. 

Candidates and Campaigns

Washington Post: David Trone and the history of candidates lighting their money on fire

By Aaron Blake

.....Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) spent $62 million of his own money on the race, only to lose to Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks by double digits. The current results show Alsobrooks winning 54 percent to 42 percent, with about two-thirds of the vote in.

The amount of money Trone burned through is stunning. According to the Open Secrets compendium of self-funders, Trone, a co-owner of Total Wine & More, spent more of his own money on his Senate primary race than any other candidate in the 21st century (and, almost assuredly, ever)…

One of our favorite election stats is self-funding dollars per vote. And recent elections have featured some doozies. Candidates are spending more and more of their own money not only to lose, but to lose in primaries and to not get that many votes.

Washington Post: You won’t hear much about campaign finance reform in 2024. Good.

By George F. Will

.....The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision ignited perhaps the final flaring of the progressive impulse to strengthen the government’s ability to control the quantity of speech about the government. The court held that Americans do not forfeit their free-speech rights when they band together in corporate form to magnify their political advocacy. And that government cannot restrict spending on independent (not coordinated with candidates’ campaigns) political advocacy.

Although this decision was almost entirely relevant to incorporated nonprofit advocacy groups (e.g., the NAACP, the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood) and unions, hysterics erupted. The New York Times: The court had “thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century” and “paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections.” In the next four election cycles, political spending by for-profit corporations averaged about 1 percent of spending from all sources.

The States

New Hampshire Union Leader (via Yahoo): Senate restores newspaper disclaimer on political ads

By Kevin Landrigan

.....Without debate, the state Senate on Thursday voted to keep in place a little-known campaign finance law that requires newspapers and billboards to place a disclaimer at the top of all political advertising.

The New Hampshire Press Association, through its president, Union Leader Publisher Brendan McQuaid, supported the legislation (HB 1150) after a circuit judge last fall fined Londonderry Times Publisher Debra Paul $620, convicting her of five misdemeanors for running ads for local races without that disclaimer.

All ads, including those in print as well as on radio and TV, must have a disclaimer that identifies who has paid for it.

Under current law, the requirement for an additional disclaimer only applies to ads in newspapers or on billboards.

Some campaign finance advocates had testified during the bill's Senate hearing last month that the change would not support transparency in elections.

The Senate on a voice vote amended the bill to restore the disclaimer provision.

Election Law Blog: New Index for California Campaign Finance Reformers

By Tabatha Abu El-Haj 

.....California Common Cause has released a first-of-its-kind index and report on campaign finance laws in all California cities. The report, Local Dollars and Local Democracy, is an analysis of all campaign finance reforms in California cities, as of December 2022.

Key statewide findings include: