July 7, 2025

In the News

Daily Caller: Bernie Sanders Proves Himself An Establishment Shill With One Interview

By Tiffany Donnelly

.....Like too many hysterical elected officials, Sanders claims that Citizens United was “probably the worst decision that the Supreme Court has ever made.”

Really?

Dred Scott ruled that descendants of slaves were not U.S. citizens. Plessy v. Ferguson legalized racial segregation under the “separate but equal doctrine.” Buck v. Bell held that the forced sterilization of people deemed “unfit” was perfectly legal. Korematsu v. United States upheld the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II…

But, to Sanders, a ruling that protects the free political speech rights of all Americans, which allows minority views to compete with institutionalized power, is somehow the Court’s worst decision.

The Oklahoman: Judge awards KFOR's lawyers more than $170K in fees following lawsuit against Ryan Walters

By Murray Evans

.....A federal judge has ordered state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters and his former spokesman to pay more than $170,000 in attorneys’ fees to lawyers that successfully represented Oklahoma City television station KFOR in a First Amendment lawsuit last year. 

U.S. District Judge Bernard Jones’ ruling, issued Friday, June 27, granted the four attorneys who represented KFOR in the case a little less than half of the $366,000 they had requested. Jones also said those attorneys weren’t entitled to an additional $10,550 in costs for which they had asked to be reimbursed. 

Supreme Court

SCOTUSblog: Court takes up potentially important case on campaign-finance regulations

By Amy Howe

.....Creating the prospect of a major case on campaign-finance regulations, the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to revisit its 2001 ruling in Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, in which the justices upheld federal limits on coordinated campaign expenditures, which restrict political parties from spending money on campaign advertising with input from political candidates. 

The announcement came on a list of orders released from the justices’ private conference on Thursday, June 26. The case, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, will likely be argued in the fall, with a decision to follow in 2026. 

The Courts

Washington Examiner: Marc Elias loses lawsuit over allowing foreign funding in Kansas ballot campaigns

By Mia Cathell

.....Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias has lost his bid to thwart a Kansas law banning foreign actors from funneling money into state-level ballot initiatives.

In May, the Elias Law Group, the eponymous law firm of the election attorney, jointly filed a federal lawsuit challenging the ban, enacted as H.B. 2106, on behalf of the foreign-funded Kansans for Constitutional Freedom.

This week, an Obama-appointed judge issued a scathing ruling rejecting the plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction “premised on an unconstitutional overbreadth theory.”

H.B. 2106, which amends the state’s Campaign Finance Act, prohibits donations from foreign nationals in support or defeat of proposed amendments to the Kansas constitution.

Federal law already forbids foreign interests from contributing to individual candidates and super PACs, but a backdoor exists regarding ballot measures. H.B. 2106, however, closes this foreign influence loophole in Kansas elections.

U.S. Judge Daniel D. Crabtree, an Obama appointee, sided with the state on Monday, the eve of the Kansas law’s effective date.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Florida Teachers Have No First Amendment Right to Indicate Their Preferred Pronouns and Honorifics in Class

By Eugene Volokh

.....Excerpts from the 9,400-word Wood v. Fla. Dep't of Ed., decided today by Eleventh Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom, joined by Judge Andrew Brasher:

FEC

Campaigns & Elections: New Chair Takes Over a Paralyzed Federal Election Commission

By Max Greenwood

.....The Federal Election Commission officially has a new chair.

Democrat Shana Broussard, who was nominated to the commission in 2020 by President Donald Trump, formally became FEC chair on Tuesday, two months after her fellow commissioners elected her to the position. It’s Broussard’s second time in the role; she previously chaired the commission in 2021.

Broussard is the first permanent chair at the FEC since February, when Trump abruptly removed longtime commissioner and then-Chair Ellen Weintraub from the agency. Since then, Republican Commissioner Trey Trainor has served as the commission’s acting chair…

The six-person commission has seen its membership cut in half since the beginning of the year…

In a statement on Tuesday, Broussard acknowledged that it is a “challenging time” for the FEC, but insisted that she is prepared to tackle the growing backlog of campaign finance enforcement matters once the commission’s quorum is restored. 

According to Broussard, there were 161 pending enforcement matters before the FEC as of April – far fewer than the 452 on the docket in 2021, when Broussard first became chair. 

Online Speech Platforms

Washington Post (Tech Brief): X will let AI bots fact-check posts. It isn’t as crazy as it sounds.

By Will Oremus

.....Elon Musk’s X said this week it will begin allowing developers to create AI agents that can propose debunking as part of its Community Notes program.

But don’t worry, said Keith Coleman, X’s vice president of product: Humans will still be in charge. And some misinformation experts say the idea isn’t as fantastical as it might sound — though they do have some concerns.

X hopes the move will help it speed up and scale up a program that has become a model for the social media industry.

Nonprofits

ProPublica: Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations

By Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski

.....In 2023, while Kristi Noem was governor of South Dakota, she supplemented her income by secretly accepting a cut of the money she raised for a nonprofit that promotes her political career, tax records show.

In what experts described as a highly unusual arrangement, the nonprofit routed funds to a personal company of Noem’s that had recently been established in Delaware. The payment totaled $80,000 that year, a significant boost to her roughly $130,000 government salary. Since the nonprofit is a so-called dark money group — one that’s not required to disclose the names of its donors — the original source of the money remains unknown.

Noem then failed to disclose the $80,000 payment to the public.

The States

Jonesing on Nonprofits: Political Alignments on Donor Disclosure/Privacy are Always Shifting

By Darryll K. Jones

.....The two sides have switched sides in the past and if things keep going the way they are, the two sides will switch sides again. Or they might even join forces in support of NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson . During the civil rights era and then again during the red scare, conservatives demanded to know who was donating to or just populating groups thought to be “outside agitators,” communists, or “communist sympathizers.” Progressives preferred – indeed depended on – donor privacy to protect themselves from lynchings, economic oppression, or getting hauled before some crazy Congressional committee and thereafter banished, by mere rumor and inuendo, from Hollywood and the rest of society.

As Trump continues his speech- and thought-based persecution of civil society, I bet progressives will increasingly reject calls for donor disclosure. Donor disclosure will be increasingly dangerous for progressive stakeholders – and eventually for all stakeholders. 

People United for Privacy: Louisiana Joins the Campaign Finance Modernization Movement

By Luke Wachob

.....One of the nation’s most antiquated state laws just got a much-needed renovation. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry (R) signed H.B. 693 on June 20, finally modernizing the state’s campaign finance laws for the digital age and improving Louisianians’ privacy in the process. The reform measure, spearheaded by Governor Landry and his attorney Stephen Gelé and sponsored by Representative Mark Wright (R), passed both chambers of the Legislature with strong bipartisan support, with votes of 77-16 in the House and 31-6 in the Senate.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): California Law Stops City from Flying World Flag Above U.S. and California Flag

By Eugene Volokh

.....From City of Arcata v. Citizens in Support of Measure M, decided Friday by the California Court of Appeal (Justice Charles Smiley, joined by Justices Jim Humes and Monique Langhorne Wilson); seems quite right to me:

NJ.com: ‘Rudeness is not a crime.’ NAACP warns Norcross case endangers free speech.

By Colleen Murphy

.....The New Jersey NAACP says the state’s criminal case against political power broker George E. Norcross III isn’t just flawed, it risks turning political speech and civic engagement into crimes.

The NAACP, along with the New Jersey AFL-CIO and the New Jersey Building and Construction Trades Council, filed a legal brief last month urging an appellate court to uphold the dismissal of the high-profile indictment against Norcross and five others…

In the ongoing appeal, the NAACP and its allies argue that the prosecution threatens to criminalize constitutionally protected activity and routine business conduct related to redevelopment in New Jersey.

Their brief says the case could discourage legitimate political advocacy and negotiations, especially in communities that depend on public-private partnerships for economic development.

It also argues that lobbying, negotiating redevelopment deals, and advocating for public policy are all lawful and essential parts of redevelopment efforts in the state.

Honolulu Civil Beat: State Watchdogs Are Keeping The Pressure On For Government Reform

By Chad Blair

.....Fired up by the fate of a major pay-to-play bill that died in April at the Legislature, the heads of the Campaign Spending Commission and Hawaiʻi State Ethics Commission are stepping up their efforts to lobby for reform in the 2026 session that beings in January.

The cooperation between Kristin Izumi-Nitao, executive director of campaign spending, and Robert Harris, executive director of ethics, entered a new phase Wednesday when Izumi-Nitao appeared by invitation at the ethics commission’s public meeting.

The purpose was to hear insights and explore collaboration between the agencies. It was a meeting of like minds to shop-talk shared priorities — especially legislation to ban campaign contributions from state or county contractors, grantees, officers and their immediate family members.

Michigan Advance: Ballot initiative seeks to ban political contributions from monopoly corporations, like utilities

By Ben Solis

.....A ballot initiative is in the works to ban corporations with large existing or pending government contracts from making political contributions to candidates for office and sitting lawmakers.

Taking Back Our Power, a coalition backing the initiative, announced Monday its plans to get language approved for signature collection. The aim is to get the proposal before voters on the 2026 general election ballot.

Michigan law currently allows powerful monopolies and large government contractors, like DTE Energy, Consumers Energy and insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, to gain political influence via campaign and political action committee contributions, which can often evade public transparency and accountability, the group said Monday.

That’s where Michiganders for Money Out of Politics aims to make a difference. The ballot committee backed by Taking Back Our Power says it seeks to restore Michigan’s democratic systems by putting people over corporate profits.