October 2, 2025

Ed. note: The Daily Media Update will return Monday, October 6.

The Courts

Jonesing for Nonprofits: District Court Declares Social Welfare Standard Unconstitutionally Vague

By Darryll K. Jones

.....Freedom Path, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service, a 15 year old perplexing case I wrote about in July, just took another perplexing turn. To briefly summarize, Freedom Path, Inc. applied for recognition as an IRC 501(c)(4) social welfare organization in 2011. The organization went back and forth with the Service for nearly nine years before the Service finally determined that Freedom Path did not qualify as a social welfare organization. The stated reason was that Freedom Path’s campaign intervention was more than insubstantial.

While Freedom Path’s application was pending, the notorious Tea Party Scandal erupted. That scandal resulted in administrative and congressional investigations concluding that the IRS improperly scrutinized applications for tax exemption from organizations associated with the Tea Party movement. The investigations determined that the Service selected organizations for slow walking or enhanced scrutiny based on the organizations’ political views. Heads rolled, most notably that of Lois Lerner.

The Service has always asserted that the targeting of Tea Party groups resulted from ambiguity in the law regarding how much campaign intervention was too much, not from governmental antipathy towards the organizations’ political speech.

Ed. note: IFS President David Keating first tweeted about the ruling here. The 60-page ruling is available here.

Courthouse News: Judge blocks California law on political, religious speech at work meetings

By Alan Riquelmy

.....The California Chamber of Commerce succeeded Tuesday in having a state law put on hold that institutes punishment if bosses penalize employees for failing to attend mandatory meetings when certain subjects are discussed.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta ruled that Senate Bill 399 — which the chamber said limits employers from talking about religious or political issues — is preempted under the National Labor Relations Act and violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment.

Additionally, the judge agreed with the chamber’s arguments that the law is a content-based regulation of speech that falls before a standard of strict scrutiny.

His ruling temporarily pauses the law’s enforcement.

Trump Administration

Bloomberg Law: Trump Memo Threatens to Expand Censorship of Political Speech

By Aaron Terr

.....The White House says it’s “exploring a wide variety of options” to “address left-wing political violence and the network of organizations that fuel and fund it.” The administration appears to interpret “fuel” broadly, effectively sweeping protected political advocacy into its dragnet.

Last week, President Donald Trump issued a memorandum directing the National Joint Terrorism Task Force to coordinate a comprehensive strategy to “investigate, prosecute, and disrupt” political violence. But the memo blurs the line between ideology and violence, laying the groundwork for surveillance and investigation of political opponents.

It orders the US attorney general to identify “recurrent motivations” and other “indicia” common to groups that coordinate “terrorist acts” to “prevent potential violent activity,” including “organized doxing campaigns”—which, in the administration’s apparent view, can mean nothing more than noting the presence of law enforcement in public. 

And what might count as indicia of political violence? The memo itself supplies an answer: “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” “extremism on migration, race, and gender,” and “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” Advocating political views that clash with government orthodoxy thus becomes grounds for suspicion of criminal activity. 

Free Expression

Puck ("Impolitic with John Heilemann"): Floyd Abrams: Comey, Kimmel, & Trump's Limitless Enemies List

.....John welcomes celebrated First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams to discuss Donald Trump’s efforts to stifle and/or prosecute his political opponents. Abrams—who has argued more free-speech cases before the Supreme Court than any attorney and whose clients have ranged from the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case to Mitch McConnell in Citizens United—explains why Jimmy Kimmel’s reinstatement isn’t likely to end Trump’s legal and regulatory assault on broadcasters and the news media; the indictment of Jim Comey marks a new and dangerous phase in the administration’s weaponization of the legal system; and we are now living in a world where no hypothetical abuse of presidential power is too outlandish to take seriously.

New York Times: We Have Seen the ‘Woke Right’ Before, and It Wasn’t Pretty Then, Either

By Nicole Hemmer

.....The blacklisting of the 1940s and 1950s comprised both public and private efforts. Counterattack began publishing just a few months before the first Hollywood blacklist began in the midst of a House Un-American Activities Committee investigation. Senator Joseph McCarthy announced his dubious list of 205 communists in the State Department a few months before the publication of “Red Channels.”

Leaders in higher education, film, broadcasting and government used mass firings, loyalty oaths and censorship to purge both supposed and actual leftists from their institutions over the next several years — a reminder that ostensibly liberal industries quickly came to the aid of largely right-wing censors. And while McCarthy would ultimately be censured by his Senate colleagues and disgraced in the public eye, he remained a hero of right-wing activists like William F. Buckley Jr. (who, in his 1951 book “God and Man at Yale,” derided academic freedom and sought to pressure colleges to teach conservative orthodoxies).

For the right, this crackdown wasn’t a sign of the excesses of the early Cold War but rather the proper role of government: to police public life to make sure it conformed to conservative values. Communists remained a constant target during the Cold War, as did people who broke from traditional gender and sexual norms. Thousands of gay men and women lost their government jobs in the so-called Lavender Scare as part of the anti-communist crackdown that started in the 1940s.

CNN: Nearly 80 years after McCarthyism, Jane Fonda relaunches Committee for the First Amendment: ‘The stakes are too high’

By Elizabeth Wagmeister

.....Eight decades after Hollywood legends like Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland launched the Committee for the First Amendment to stand up to McCarthyism, Jane Fonda is bringing back the organization at a time she calls “the most frightening moment of my life.”

The younger Fonda issued a plea to her Hollywood community in a letter shared with CNN, asking her peers to join the relaunched committee, writing, “I’m 87 years old. I’ve seen war, repression, protest, and backlash. I’ve been celebrated, and I’ve been branded an enemy of the state. But I can tell you this: this is the most frightening moment of my life.” …

“That’s why I believe the time is now to relaunch the Committee for the First Amendment – the same Committee my father, Henry Fonda, joined with other artists during the McCarthy era, when so many were silenced or even imprisoned simply for their words and their craft.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:  A large majority of Americans think political violence is a big problem, Marquette survey finds. Who to blame differs.

By Anna Kleiber

.....The survey, conducted following the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, found that 38% of Americans think the threat of violence against political leaders is a "very" big problem," with an additional 38% saying it's a "moderately" big problem.

When asked which is a bigger problem, 27% of respondents said left-wing violence while 22% said right-wing violence. When looking at political party affiliations, however, the perception of which side is more likely to commit political violence is dramatically different.

Among Republicans, 57% said left-wing violence is the bigger problem, with just 3% saying right-wing violence is more of a problem. Democrats see a near mirror image, with 50% saying right-wing violence as the bigger problem and only 4% saying left-wing violence is the greater problem. Independents see equal blame for both sides, with 87% saying both left and right-wing violence are equally a problem.

Fox News: NYU blocks Oct. 7 campus talk by Jewish conservative, citing security concerns

By Alec Schemmel 

.....Backlash is mounting against New York University after its law school decided to block an on-campus event with conservative Jewish legal analyst Ilya Shapiro, which was scheduled for the anniversary of Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

The university's Federalist Society chapter had planned to host Shapiro for a midday discussion, but the event was canceled after NYU administrators stepped in.

The group was asked to host Shapiro on a different date due to "security reasons" and because the university said it was anticipating "an increased likelihood of demonstrations and protests connected to the anniversary of the October 7, 2023 incidents in Gaza," according to emails shared with Fox News Digital. The request was later turned into a refusal to permit the event during the week of the Oct. 7 anniversary.

Online Speech Platforms

New York Times: Spam and Scams Proliferate in Facebook’s Political Ads

By Steven Lee Myers

.....In a report released on Wednesday, the project identified 63 advertisers that have by several measures employed deceptive or fraudulent practices. They amount to roughly one in five of the platform’s top 300 spenders in the category of political or social advertising.

Collectively they bought nearly 150,000 ads, spending almost $49 million over the past seven years, according to data in Facebook’s ad library.

Ads from all of the 63 advertisers have previously been removed for violating Facebook’s policies, meaning their deceptive practices were not unknown. Meta has suspended some of them, but more than half were able to continue posting new ads as recently as this week. The analysis suggests that even when Facebook takes action, it has profited from advertisers that try to swindle its users.

The States

National Law Review: New York Ethics Commission Considers Expanding Lobbying Regulations and Campaign Finance Restrictions

By Joshua L. Oppenheimer and Cathryn O. Crummey of Greenberg Traurig, LLP

.....On Sept. 25, 2025, the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (COELIG or Commission) conducted its third annual hearing to review the laws, regulations, and advisory opinions that govern the Commission, state public officials, and lobbyists. In conjunction with this hearing, the Commission released a Comprehensive Review Guiding Questions and Potential Proposals for Public Comment.

The topics that COELIG flagged for consideration are wide ranging, but some proposals deserve closer attention by lobbyists and clients of lobbyists due to the effect that they may have on lobbying compliance obligations, if adopted. COELIG’s proposals include:

Dallas Morning News: Dallas City Council delves deeper into ethics debate, rejects nominee to ethics board

By Devyani Chhetri

.....Ongoing scrutiny of the ethical conduct of city officials and their appointees notched a new chapter Wednesday at City Hall.

A majority of the Dallas City Council rejected their North Dallas colleague’s nominee to the ethics advisory commission Wednesday, citing adversarial online conduct by her husband.

Posts and videos by the husband featured caricatures of city officials, sometimes using deepfake artificial intelligence.

AJC Politics: Ethics panel widens probe of GOP group tied to Frost family

By Greg Bluestein and David Wickert

.....The State Ethics Commission expanded an investigation of political contributions that stemmed from the collapse of First Liberty Building & Loan, casting a fresh spotlight on an ultraconservative organization with close ties to the founder’s son.

In July, the commission charged the Georgia Republican Assembly PAC with 61 violations of state campaign finance laws, accusing it of illegally trying to sway elections. On Wednesday, investigators added the affiliated Georgia Republican Assembly itself as a defendant in the case.

News from the States: NM lawmakers start session denouncing political violence

By Patrick Lohmann

.....Republican and Democratic members in both chambers of New Mexico Legislature began the 2025 special legislative session Wednesday with bipartisan condemnation of political violence, which they described as a growing and worrying trend.

They had many recent examples to point to: the recent killing of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk in Utah; arson at the New Mexico Republican headquarters; the shooting death of a Minnesota House Leader, Democrat Melissa Hortman; bomb threats at the homes of Santa Fe Democrats Sen. Peter Wirth and Rep. Reena Szczepanski; and the sentencing in August of Solomon Peña, convicted of orchestrating shootings at the homes of prominent elected Democrats...

Sen. Bill Sharer (R-Farmington), the Senate minority leader, spoke after Wirth, saying political violence must cease “unequivocally, undeniably and immediately.”

“Disagreements are no longer just debates. They’ve become battlegrounds. When someone holds a different view, they aren’t just opposed, they’re vilified and dehumanized, or worse, silenced through fear or violence,” he said. “This is not who we are.”

In the House, Szczepanski, Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena) and Speaker Javier Martinez (D-Albuquerque) all took a few minutes to decry political violence. Martinez said he recently held his wife as she tearfully testified about the trauma she and her children still face from Peña shooting up their home. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison last month.

Lansing State Journal (via Archive Today): Lansing Charter Commission mailer violates state law, City Council president says

By Susan Vela

.....The “Your Charter, Your Choice!” flyer mailed to more than 20,000 households in the city has Lansing's official city seal and City Council President Ryan Kost said it is written with persuasive language – not informational verbiage. Additionally, there is no clear indication of who paid for the document.

“What we got was a persuasive piece of mail,” Kost said, addressing a statement on the flyer that reads “the new charter seeks to strengthen transparency and accountability in city government and broaden representation."

“That language is extremely persuasive and problematic on a document that’s paid for by tax dollars,” he added.

Lansing Charter Commission Chair Brian Jeffries, an attorney and former city council member, did not agree to an interview, but said in a statement the commission disagreed that the mailer was persuasive. Kost, he added, had mischaracterized the flyer.

"This piece was carefully developed to provide factual, accurate information to residents about the proposal, its background, and its potential impact on our community," Jeffries said in a statement. “Before distribution, the mailer was thoroughly reviewed and approved by the commission’s legal counsel to ensure full compliance with state law. The content is strictly educational in nature and clearly does not advocate for or against the proposal. It provides voters with objective information so they can make their own informed decisions.