October 30, 2024

In the News

Sheridan Media: Court Rules SCSD#2 Violated First Amendment Rights By Restricting And Removing Parent

.....This past Friday (October 25th), Wyoming US District Court Judge Alan Johnson granted summary judgment in favor of Harry Pollak, who argued that in February 2022, the Board censored his criticism of a school official during a public meeting.

In its ruling, the court said the public-comment period of the Sheridan County School District No. 2 Board meeting is a limited public forum and in those types of forums, the government may impose restrictions, as long as they are “reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum” and viewpoint neutral.

According to the Institute for Free Speech, Pollak attempted to address the Board to respond to statements made by the superintendent at a previous meeting.

However, the now former Board Chair Susan Wilson, cut him off, claiming that mentioning the superintendent violated the board’s rule against discussing “personnel matters.”

Courthouse News: Sixth Circuit tests free speech limits at Tennessee school board meetings

By Kevin Koeninger

.....A "parental empowerment" group argued before an appeals court panel Tuesday that a county school board violates residents' constitutional rights with meeting rules that silence criticism and require invasive disclosures.

Moms for Liberty, a nonprofit founded by Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich, sued the Wilson County, Tennessee, board of education in 2023 to challenge the procedural rules.

Although meetings are open to the public, any speaker must publicly disclose his or her address before making a comment, and no comments deemed "abusive" toward the board or its members are allowed. In addition, if an attendee wants to comment on an issue that's not on the meeting agenda, the board has the discretion to deny the request if it deems the remarks will not be in the "public interest."

U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson in January denied the group's request for a preliminary injunction, disposed of its challenge to the "public interest" provision and refused to enjoin the address disclosure and abusive comment rules after the board removed the provisions from its list of meeting policies — a change the board says moots a portion of the lawsuit.

New from the Institute for Free Speech

Free Speech Arguments – Can School Boards Censor Parents for Harsh Criticism of School Officials? (Moms for Liberty v. Wilson County Board of Education)

.....Moms for Liberty – Wilson County, TN, et al. v. Wilson County Board of Education, et al., argued before Circuit Judges Jane Branstetter Stranch, Amul R. Thapar, and Eric E. Murphy in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on October 29, 2024. Argued by Brett R. Nolan, Senior Attorney, Institute for Free Speech (on behalf of Moms for Liberty – Wilson County, TN, et al.) and Christopher C. Hayden (on behalf of the Wilson County Board of Education, et al.).

*Note: a full transcript of the argument may be found under “resources” at the bottom of the page

Statement of Issues, from the Opening Brief for the Appellants:

The Courts

New York Times: Democratic Lawyer Stymied Trump in 2020. Other Efforts Played Into G.O.P. Hands.

By Kenneth P. Vogel

.....As the top lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016, he pushed to harness big money, at times sparking backlash from campaign finance watchdogs. In a move that in some ways foreshadowed this year’s effort on behalf of the Soros-funded PAC, Mr. Elias advised the Clinton campaign as it entered into an innovative arrangement under which it coordinated with a super PAC funded by big donors.

A federal appeals court ruled in July that the F.E.C. should have investigated the arrangement.

Another episode from the 2016 campaign that still reverberates in national security circles and among Mr. Elias’s critics on the right was the arrangement for which he served as the point person to fund opposition research that produced salacious — but ultimately largely debunked — claims about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia...

In June, his namesake firm sued to overturn an Ohio law barring foreign nationals from spending money to support ballot-measure campaigns. The lawsuit came amid bipartisan national efforts to bar foreign money from influencing ballot campaigns.

The Ohio law appeared to target Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire and a major donor to nonprofit groups that had funded Democrat-aligned ballot measures in the state. Mr. Elias had defended Mr. Wyss against a complaint that resulted in a finding from F.E.C. lawyers that Mr. Wyss had violated a ban on foreign donations to federal candidates, but that the donations were outside the statute of limitations.

In a written statement, Mr. Elias suggested that the lawsuit was not prompted by Mr. Wyss, calling the foreign donation ban a “bullying” tactic by Ohio Republicans “to sabotage popular progressive ballot measures.”

Politico: DeSantis administration threatens charges stemming from TV ad supporting abortion initiative

By Arek Sarkissian

.....A lawyer for the Florida Department of Health would not rule out criminal charges stemming from a round of cease and desist letters that were sent by the agency to stop a TV ad promoting this year’s abortion access ballot initiative.

Brian Barnes, a lawyer for the state Department of Health, said during a Tuesday hearing in Tallahassee federal court that a TV ad supporting the initiative, which appears on the ballot as Amendment 4, could stop mothers from seeking emergency care due to the confusion it could create about the state’s ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. DOH is overseen by the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has spent the past several months campaigning against the measure.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Texas Public University Restrictions on Anti-Israel Speech Likely Violate First Amendment

By Eugene Volokh

.....From today's decision by Judge Robert Pitman (W.D. Tex.) in Students for Justice in Palestine v. Abbott:

Candidates and Campaigns

Bloomberg Government: It’s Not All Deepfakes: Responsible AI Can Strengthen Democracy

By John Hewitt Jones

.....Participating in elections, whether by voting or running for office, is the lifeblood of democracy.

The harder it is (or the harder it appears) for individuals to make their voices heard, the less agency they feel they have and the more our institutions get chilled. If it’s too costly or inconvenient to get involved, why bother?

In 2020, the average cost of running a successful campaign for the US House was $2 million. A successful US Senate campaign cost on average $20 million over the same period, according to an analysis by the Campaign Finance Institute. Running for a state senate seat on average cost around $120,000, and even running for a school board seat can exceed $25,000.

That’s a huge barrier for someone contemplating a first campaign. Anything that trims these costs by even a little can make running more approachable.

This is where artificial intelligence comes in...

[Fears of AI] shouldn’t distract from the technology’s very pragmatic potential to reduce the kinds of mundane but necessary costs that help make campaigns so expensive. Further, when deployed in the right way, AI can diversify financial support for political candidates and intensify direct appeals to supporters. Grassroots projects have used these to great effect through the use of social media.

Washington Post (Tech Brief): They look like Harris ads. Trump backers bought them.

By Will Oremus and Trisha Thadani

.....“Progress 2028” has placed 13 different ads on the social network in October, 11 within the past week, according to Meta’s political ad library. Collectively, they have been viewed millions of times by users in swing states. The ads are designed to look like they support the Harris campaign but tout controversial policy stances she doesn’t endorse. They include ensuring undocumented immigrants can vote and receive Medicare benefits, instituting mandatory gun buybacks, and banning fracking. “Drop a comment to thank Kamala,” the ads say…

Perhaps surprisingly, the ads do not appear to violate Meta’s policies.

Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels declined to discuss the Progress 2028 ads. But six of them remained active on Facebook as of Tuesday night, suggesting the company has seen no reason to take them down — even though the group’s name is fictitious, and its true backers and motivations are not disclosed to users.

“This type of political advertising isn’t new and has been found across the media landscape for decades,” Daniels said. “By adding a disclosure label and making ads publicly available in our Ad Library, Meta brings a level of transparency to political advertising that far exceeds that of any other platform where these ads have run."

Meta has said it will block new political ads in the final week of the campaign, a policy that it instituted in 2020.

The States

Gothamist:  Harlem woman charged by Bragg in Adams campaign straw donor scheme pleads guilty

By Samantha Max

.....A Harlem woman accused of recruiting elderly residents of her housing complex to give illegal donations to Mayor Eric Adams’ 2021 campaign pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct Tuesday, according to a copy of the signed plea agreement obtained by Gothamist.

Millicent Redick is not expected to face any jail time, as long as she follows the court’s conditions, the agreement states.

Last year, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Redick and five other people with allegedly conspiring to collect donations from people who would later be reimbursed, also known as straw donations. The goal, according to prosecutors, was to collect donations small enough to qualify for New York City’s public matching program, which gives candidates $8 in taxpayer funds per every dollar they raise from city residents below a certain threshold.