October 7, 2024

In the News

The Hill: Supreme Court declines to take up ‘dark money’ case

By Taylor Giorno

.....The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a challenge to San Francisco’s “Sunlight on Dark Money” disclosure law, which would have tested the limits of disclosure and free speech in campaign finance. 

San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved the initiative in 2019, compelling election ads to include a disclaimer naming the top three donors to the group running the ad. 

If the donor is another committee, then the committee’s top two donors and the dollar amounts given by both need to be disclosed…

But plaintiffs called the secondary disclosure requirements overly burdensome and alleged they would “scare away donors,” infringing on their constitutional rights. 

They were represented by the First Amendment advocates at the Institute for Free Speech, a conservative nonprofit that regularly opposes political spending and contribution restrictions. 

The Institute for Free Speech petitioned the Supreme Court in February to consider two questions: whether the disclosure requirement “advances any important or compelling state interest,” and if the law “violates the First Amendment freedoms of speech and association.” …

“San Francisco’s secondary donor on-communication disclosure requirement forces the Committee to either give up its protected First Amendment right to speak about a candidate or proclaim the City’s message as part of its speech,” the original complaint argued. 

The Oklahoman: Judge was right to halt Ryan Walters' exclusion of TV station from meetings

By David Keating

.....Oklahoma’s top education official seems to have forgotten a lesson taught in every civics class: our constitutional rights under the First Amendment.

State schools Superintendent Ryan Walters and his press secretary Dan Isett repeatedly barred KFOR-TV reporters from attending state Board of Education meetings and press conferences. Their justification? They say that KFOR-TV isn’t a “legitimate” news organization. This is an absurd claim, given that KFOR has won many awards and is the state’s oldest television station, informing Oklahomans since 1949.

Attorneys from my organization, the Institute for Free Speech, and local counsel Bob Nelon, recently filed a lawsuit to stop this unconstitutional denial of First Amendment rights.

But this conflict isn’t just about one TV station. It’s about the core principles of our democracy.

Fortunately, the federal courts understand this. Within two days of the lawsuit being filed, the court granted a temporary restraining order against Walters and his press secretary, preventing them from excluding KFOR-TV from these public events.

Supreme Court

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Lackey v. Stinnie: What, Exactly, Is a Preliminary Injunction?

By Samuel Bray

.....Next week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Lackey v. Stinnie, a case that presents two questions about whether and when a party who receives a preliminary injunction may recover attorneys' fees as a "prevailing party" under 42 U.S.C. § 1988. An en banc decision of the Fourth Circuit said yes to prevailing party status for the plaintiff who secured a preliminary injunction before the challenged statutory provision was repealed.

The case is interesting for many reasons. One is the unusual split among the amici. The government amici, including conservative states and the Biden administration, lined up in support of the petitioner (arguing that the PI-receiving plaintiff was not a prevailing party). The public interest organizations lined up in support of the defendant (arguing for prevailing party status). That might not seem surprising–after all, fee shifting is an important part of the latter group's business model.

But below the surface two points are worthy of note.

Ed. note: Read our joint amicus brief in support of respondents here.

USA Today: Supreme Court rejects case about DOJ investigating parents who protest at school boards

By Bart Jansen

.....The Supreme Court refused on Monday to hear a case from parents in Virginia and Michigan who argued the Justice Department targeted them for protesting at school board meetings.

At the heart of the dispute was a 2021 memo Attorney General Merrick Garland aimed at combatting “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff.” The memo setting up meetings with state and local law enforcement agencies sought to “discourage these threats, identify them when they occur and prosecute them when appropriate.”

Some parents in Loudoun County, Virginia, and Saline, Michigan, challenged the policy in federal court by arguing it targeted them for protesting school policies under their First Amendment rights. But judges on the District and Circuit Courts rejected their arguments.

Now the Supreme Court has refused to hear the case.

The Courts

New York Times: The Tech Lobbying Group Helping to Broaden the First Amendment’s Reach

By Cecilia Kang

.....[NetChoice,] which has grown significantly in power and influence over the last decade, is the driving force behind lawsuits that have derailed several state laws regulating the tech industry, including six on child safety. Last week, it filed a seventh lawsuit against a similar child safety law in Tennessee. To win on issues including privacy, child safety, e-commerce and taxes, the lobbying group has relied on a novel legal application of the First Amendment.

NetChoice has effectively argued that the state laws amount in various ways to censorship. Though the statutes are intended to protect children, fight disinformation and bolster privacy, they restrict access to content and could undermine the free expression of individuals and social media companies, the group has claimed.

In these arguments, Big Tech is testing the bounds of the First Amendment, expanding interpretations of the amendment’s definition of freedom of religion, press and speech to provide protections in the internet era. The lobbyists say that Meta, Google, Snap and other social media companies are the modern-day soapboxes of the nation and that the content they host and transmit is protected speech.

Daily Caller: University Illegally Blocked Conservative Event While Pro-Palestinian Encampments Took Hold On Campus, Lawsuit Alleges

By Jaryn Crouson

.....The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) blocked a conservative speaking event from occurring on campus despite allowing anti-Israel protests to continue for weeks, a new lawsuit alleges.

Young America’s Foundation (YAF) filed a lawsuit against the university on Thursday after the school prevented its YAF chapter from hosting a speech in May by Robert Spencer, an outspoken critic of radical Islam, titled “Everything You Know About Palestine Is Wrong.” The university delayed responding to the event requests before blocking access to the event space entirely, saying that it must be moved to an “out-of-the-way location” due to pro-Palestinian activists threatening to protest the event, the lawsuit alleges.

The States

New York Focus: Adams Scandal Exposes Potential Flaws in NYC’s Campaign Finance System

By Julia Rock and Mark Chiusano  

.....This summer, city council member Lincoln Restler proposed a package of three bills aimed at bolstering the board’s oversight powers.

One bill would empower the board to stop matching funds for campaigns that fail to respond to board requests for information within 30 days – as the Adams campaign did in 2021, according to reporting from Gothamist.

“If this legislation had been in place for the 2021 cycle, it would have, in all likelihood, prevented the straw donor scheme that Mayor Adams and his campaign effectuated,” Restler told New York Focus.

“And if they tried to perpetuate this fraud anyway, the CFB would have not given them $10 million in matching funds,” he said, because the board could have withheld the money after Adams’ campaign failed to provide requested information about donors.

“He would have had no choice but to play by the rules,” said Restler, who is now calling on the board to halt public matching funds for the Adams campaign.

Restler’s bills would also impose more regulations on “intermediaries” – people who solicit donations for campaigns, such as by hosting fundraisers.

His legislation would require the board to make an effort to verify donations made through intermediaries by contacting the contributors. And it would limit people who work for city contractors from soliciting, or “bundling,” donations.

The board is currently in the public comment period for new rules, which include firmer language about denying candidates public funds if they fail to file certain disclosures or to respond to the board’s requests for information. A Brennan Center explainer published Thursday called the updates an “important step forward.”