September 26, 2024

In the News

The Oklahoman: Federal judge issues restraining order requested by KFOR against Ryan Walters, spokesman

By Murray Evans

.....A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order Wednesday that will keep Oklahoma State Department of Education officials from barring journalists from Oklahoma City television station KFOR from the room in which State Board of Education meetings and news conferences are held.

Earlier Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Bernard Jones heard arguments concerning KFOR's request to force state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters and his spokesman, Dan Isett, to allow the station’s journalists in the room for Thursday morning’s state board meeting. In past months, Isett has prevented the station’s journalists, sometimes physically, from being in the room.

"Newsgathering is the lifeblood of free speech — the essential precursor to the dissemination of information and ideas that the public needs to form opinions, participate in democratic processes, and hold those in power accountable," Jones wrote. "Greenlighting a governmental attempt to restrict access to a limited public forum based on its unilateral determination that a news organization’s reporting is factually untrue amounts to an unworkable standard. Such a standard, indeed, would empower the government to act as the final arbiter of truth, chilling investigative journalism and suppressing dissenting viewpoints."

KGOU AM: AM NewsBrief: Sept. 26, 2024

.....Courtney Corbello is the attorney representing the station. She addressed reporters outside the federal courthouse downtown.

"It's a pretty straightforward First Amendment issue. When the government opens up limited forums for reporters to then report from, they can't just use their unbridled discretion to figure out who they want there and who they don't," said Corbello.

First Amendment News: What’s on deck for the upcoming Court term — First Amendment News 441

By Ronald K.L. Collins

.....5. Constitutionality of mandatory disclosure of political donor laws.

In No on E, San Franciscans Opposing the Affordable Care Housing Production Act, et al. v. Chiu, the issues raised are:

1. Whether requiring political advertisers to name their donors’ donors within their advertisements advances any important or compelling state interest.
2. Whether San Francisco’s secondary donor speech mandate violates the First Amendment freedoms of speech and association.

Alan Gura of the Institute for Free Speech is the counsel of record for the petitioner. 

New from the Institute for Free Speech

Judge Sides with Oklahoma TV Station in First Amendment Lawsuit

.....Oklahoma’s oldest TV station has scored an early victory in its fight for press freedom.

Calling the officials’ rationale “little more than a ruse,” a federal judge has quickly granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) in favor of Oklahoma City television station KFOR-TV in its First Amendment lawsuit against Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and Press Secretary Dan Isett.

The lawsuit, filed by attorneys from the Institute for Free Speech and local counsel Bob Nelon, stems from Walters and Isett’s exclusion of KFOR journalists from public State Board of Education proceedings and press conferences, sometimes physically preventing reporters from entering convening spaces.

The TRO prevents state officials from “(1) denying KFOR access to the room in which Oklahoma State Board of Education meetings are held; (2) barring KFOR from Walters’ follow-up press conferences; and (3) physically obstructing or impeding KFOR’s reporters when they attend these meetings or press conferences.”

The Courts

The Federalist: Appellate Court Greenlights Ohio’s Prohibition On Foreign Cash In Ballot Initiative Campaigns — For Now

By Shawn Fleetwood

.....Ohio’s prohibition on foreign money in state ballot measure campaigns may take effect for now, a federal appellate court ruled on Tuesday.

In its short order, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals placed an administrative stay on a preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio Eastern Division last month. That ruling barred the law (HB 1) from taking effect in time for the 2024 general election.

“To provide sufficient opportunity to consider the merits of the motion, we conclude that a brief administrative stay is warranted,” Tuesday’s order reads. “Accordingly, the district court’s order is hereby temporarily STAYED until October 8, 2024.”

Orlando Weekly: Federal court hears arguments on Florida law restricting pronoun use by teachers

By Dara Kam, News Service of Florida

.....A federal appellate-court panel heard arguments Tuesday in a challenge to a Florida law requiring educators to use pronouns that align with their sex assigned at birth, in a case that has drawn national attention from the Biden administration, teachers unions and LGBTQ advocates.

Lawyers for the state went to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction that blocked enforcement of the 2023 law against transgender Hillsborough County teacher Katie Wood.

The lawsuit alleges the law violates teachers’ First Amendment rights and runs afoul of a federal civil-rights law.

Attorneys for the state argued in court documents that the Legislature has discretion to “promote the state’s pedagogical goals” and “vindicate parental rights.”

Addressing a three-judge panel during a hearing Tuesday in Birmingham, Ala., Brian Weir, an attorney for the state, said the case “raises the question of whether governments can rule teacher speech conveyed directly to their students in the classroom.”

New York Times: Eric Adams Live Updates: Federal Agents Search Mayor’s Residence After Indictment

By Matthew Haag, William K. Rashbaum, and Olivia Bensimon

.....Federal agents searched the official residence of Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday morning, hours before prosecutors will announce the details of a federal indictment against the New York City mayor.

Investigators have focused since 2021 on whether Mr. Adams and his campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations, and on whether Mr. Adams pressured fire department officials to sign off on the opening of a Manhattan high-rise consulate building for the Turkish government, despite safety concerns.

Congress

Breitbart: GOP Rep. Palmer: Multi-Millionaires, Maybe Billionaires Using ActBlue to Funnel Money to Democrats

By Jeff Poor

.....During an appearance on Mobile, AL radio FM Talk 106.5 on Wednesday, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL), chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, said he believed wealthy funders were using ActBlue to circumvent contribution limits and funnel money to Democratic candidates.

According to Palmer, who also serves on the House Oversight Committee, some of the $2.2 billion raised through ActBlue was made with small-dollar contributions that did not have to be reported to the Federal Election Commission by people who may not be aware they were making contributions.

“[I] t’s an unbelievable amount of money that’s being spent,” Palmer explained. “And we’re actually about to launch an investigation into this Democrat fundraising program called ActBlue because we believe there are some multi-millionaires, maybe billionaires, that have been sending small-dollar contributions through the names of people who don’t even know that they’re making a contribution to Democrats. As a matter of fact, some of them might even be dead. There’s a lot of things that we’ve got to work through to straighten us out to not only ensure election integrity, but ensure there’s integrity in election funding.”

Bloomberg Law: Ex-Congressman, Judicial Pick Stumbles on Free Speech Question

By Tiana Headley

.....A former congressman became the latest Biden judicial nominee to struggle with a constitutional law question at a Senate confirmation hearing.

Anthony Brindisi, nominated for the Syracuse-based Northern District of New York, was unable to satisfy Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) when asked on Wednesday whether “government has the right to free speech.”

Brindisi started to frame an answer around individual free speech rights before later saying he hadn’t had a case on government speech in “my 20 years of litigating civil litigation matters” and more than two years as a state judge.

Free Expression

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): The Digitalist Papers (on AI and Democracy in America) Now Out from Stanford

By Eugene Volokh

.....Check out the essays here, or buy a Kindle ($1.99) or paperback or hardcover copy on Amazon. The book was put together by Erik Brynjolfsson, Alex "Sandy" Pentland, Nate Persily, and Condoleezza Rice, and by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, the Project Liberty Institute, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), and the Hoover Institution (Stanford).

The chapter authors include Eric Schmidt (formerly at Google), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), and many others, including—to give some names most likely to be familiar to our lawyer readers—Profs. Larry Lessig (Harvard Law), Nate Persily (Stanford Law), and me. Here's a full list, with links:

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): ABA Standard 208, Law Schools, and the First Amendment

By Jonathan H. Adler

.....Last February, the American Bar Association adopted a new accreditation standard on academic freedom and freedom of expression: Standard 208. Under this standard, all law schools are required to protect academic freedom and freedom of expression as a condition for their accreditation. This was a "step forward" for free speech and open inquiry at American law schools…

A new guidance memo from the ABA further explicates the reasons for adopting the new standard and makes explicit that Standard 208 incorporates First Amendment principles.

On the Standard's purpose:

Candidates and Campaigns

Freedom Forum: 2024 Election and the First Amendment

.....More than half of Americans say their concerns over the First Amendment will impact how they vote this November…

Just shy of one half of Americans (49%) consider Donald Trump to be either “a strong threat” or “somewhat of a threat” to the First Amendment, as compared to 37% who consider Kamala Harris to be either “a strong threat” or “somewhat of a threat” to their First Amendment freedoms.

When asked which candidate they consider a “protector” of First Amendment freedoms, 42% of Americans view Harris that way, compared to 36% holding that view of Trump.

Election Law Blog: “The Surprising Survival—So Far—of the Corporate Contribution Ban”

By Rick Hasen

.....Richard Briffault has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Chicago Business Law Review). Here is the abstract: