April 7, 2025

In the News

NH Journal: Nashua’s Pine Tree Flag Dispute Is Heading to Appeals Court

By Damien Fisher

.....It’s not an Appeal to Heaven, but to the First Circuit Court of Appeals for Nashua residents Beth and Stephen Scaer in their Pine Tree flag fight with the city.

The Scaers filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against Nashua after they were denied an application to fly the Revolutionary War-era banner, which includes the slogan “An Appeal to Heaven,” by Nashua officials. On Friday, lawyers for the Scaers’ filed notice in the federal court of their intention to go to the appeals court in Boston.

Last Month, United States District Court Judge Landya McCafferty denied their motion for a preliminary injunction, ruling the couple was likely to lose their case on the merits. McCafferty relied on Magistrate Judge Talesha Saint-Marc’s review and report of the case in her ruling. 

The College Fix: U. Oregon agrees to free speech reforms to settle lawsuit with conservative professor

By Jennifer Kabbany

.....The University of Oregon has agreed to enact free speech reforms to ensure it does not block or censor social media posts to settle a two-and-a-half year old lawsuit with a conservative professor who had been blocked from the institution’s X account after his “all men are created equal” post.

The settlement requires the University of Oregon to clarify social media guidelines to explicitly protect speech from viewpoint-based censorship, create an appeals process for those who believe they were wrongfully blocked, and conduct annual First Amendment training for staff who manage university social media accounts, said attorneys representing Professor Bruce Gilley in a news release.

The Courts

Reuters: US judicial panel votes to scrap key part of amicus disclosure rule

By Nate Raymond

.....A U.S. judicial panel voted on Wednesday to abandon a core part of a proposed rule aimed at increasing disclosure of who funds friend-of-the-court briefs by outside groups following backlash from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other trade associations...

The proposed rule the panel had endorsed last year would have required amicus briefs to disclose if a party or its counsel in a given case contributed 25% or more of the organization's annual revenue. The committee had also proposed requiring an amicus brief filer to name any donor who earmarked money for the preparation of the brief if that person or entity had only been a member of the organization filing it for less than 12 months. The committee on Wednesday voted unanimously to advance that piece of the proposal to the Judicial Conference's Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, its top rulemaking body, to vote to finalize the rule. But the panel narrowly voted down the 25% requirement, after some judges and the U.S. Department of Justice now under Republican U.S. President Donald Trump questioned its necessity. 

Congress

Sen. Durbin: Durbin, Sanders Call On Trump To Release Ozturk, Khalil, & All Those Targeted For Political Activities Protected By First Amendment

.....Following the arrests of Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, and reports of numerous other students, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today called on President Donald Trump to release all those targeted solely for political activities protected by the First Amendment and immediately terminate all removal proceedings against those individuals...

Full text of today’s letter is available here and below:

Nonprofits

People United for Privacy: “Dark Money” and the Role of Nonprofits in the 2024 Elections

By Alex Baiocco

.....While pairing the term “dark money” with a big number makes for an attention-grabbing headline, you’d be hard pressed to find a consistent number for so-called “dark money spending” in the 2024 elections. That’s not due to any dearth of reporting on the publicly available data for election spending. It’s due to the fact that there’s no agreed upon or precise definition of “dark money.”

Trying to pin down a “dark money” number is akin to searching for a precise number of sitting Members of Congress who are “unamerican.” The term is almost exclusively deployed as an attack on ideological opponents; therefore, the meaning shifts based on who’s using it and who’s being targeted. Watch any congressional hearing on “dark money,” and you’ll find Democrats demonizing conservative groups and Republicans taking aim at progressive groups.

Podcasts

Early Returns - Law and Politics with Jan Baran: Brody Mullins: Goldilocks and the Wolves of K Street, A Historical Account of Lobbying in the U.S.

.....In this episode of Early Returns, Jan Baran speaks with Brody Mullins, co-author of “The Wolves of K Street” and Pulitzer Prize winning Wall Street Journal journalist, about the historical, present and future world of lobbyists in the U.S. When our founding fathers created the Constitution, they believed there would be both industry and worker factions lobbying towards a greater good. Then, eventually big money took over big government and legal reforms were introduced. They discuss the effect the legal reforms have had on the legitimacy of lobbying. Did they help the public view of what was happening in Washington? Did the reforms take it too far? And now that President Trump is at the helm and he is issuing executive orders, what does this mean for the future of lobbying?  

Free Expression

New York Times: Columbia Displays More Aggressive Posture in Dealing With Demonstrators

By Sharon Otterman and Troy Closson

.....A new, more assertive stance was on display on Wednesday, as the university’s officers intervened to stop a daylong demonstration of students, most of whom were Jewish, who had chained themselves to the campus’s wrought-iron gates. Their demand: that the school’s board of trustees tell them who provided the federal government with information that led to the arrest last month of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and recent Columbia student.

Online Speech Platforms

Live Now Fox: Meta to stop fact-checking in the US on April 7 — Community Notes to take over

By Austin Williams

.....Meta is officially ending its third-party fact-checking program across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the United States starting Monday, April 7. The change marks a significant shift in how the company handles misinformation, transferring responsibility from professional fact-checkers to its new user-driven initiative, Community Notes.

The States

Topeka Capital-Journal: New Kansas law limits groups funded by foreign money from supporting referendums

By Jack Harvel

.....Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly allowed a bill banning campaigns for Kansas constitutional amendments from accepting large amounts of foreign money, despite her concerns it could expose the state to violations of the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Federal law prohibits foreign nationals from contributing to federal and state elections, but a loophole allows foreign contributions for ballot measures and constitutional amendments. Kelly said she would have signed the bill if it was closer to federal precedent, but instead opted to let it become law without her signature.

Her main critique of the bill is its potential to limit Kansas businesses or nonprofits from contributing to ballot measures if they receive foreign money for non-electoral purposes.

“This bill goes too far. I cannot sign a bill that takes away the ability of Kansans and Kansas businesses to support elections if they accept money from overseas for any purpose, not just those related to elections," Kelly said in a statement. “Forcing Kansans to choose between accepting financial support for any reason or surrendering their voice in the political process is wrong."

Acadia Advocate: A Lafayette man is accused of lying about political endorsements. Can he be prosecuted?

By Stephen Marcantel

.....In mid-March, Chun Ping "Eddie" Lau was arrested for violating a state campaign ethics law during the recent election that prohibits distributing knowingly false information in a campaign. 

Prosecuting Lau may be difficult, however, as the Louisiana Supreme Court has erred on the side of free speech in previous court cases dealing the with law, declaring parts of the law unconstitutional. Additionally, experts say proving Lau knowingly spread misinformation is a high bar to cross.

The law, Louisiana Revised Statute 18:1463C(1), states, "No person shall cause to be distributed, or transmitted, any oral, visual, digital, or written material containing any statement which he knows or should be reasonably expected to know makes a false statement about a candidate for election in a primary or general election or about a proposition to be submitted to the voters."