Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech December 9, 2025 Click here to subscribe to the Daily Media Update. This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]. In the News Atlanta Journal-Constitution (via Ledger-Enquirer): Raffensperger sues to scrap fundraising laws he says favor Jones in governor's race By David Wickert and Greg Bluestein .....Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is challenging Georgia election laws he says give his Republican rival an advantage as they campaign for governor. A 2021 law allows a "leadership committee" chaired by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones to raise unlimited campaign cash on his behalf. But a more traditional political committee founded by Raffensperger cannot spend money on his behalf or coordinate its expenditures with his campaign. Raffensperger's committee filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to lift those limits, arguing the law gives Jones an illegal and unfair advantage. Rather than curbing Jones' ability to raise unlimited cash, the complaint says the state should "level up" and give every candidate the same ability to raise and spend money… "Georgia's law allows one candidate to raise and spend unlimited funds, while his opponents face strict contribution limits," said Charles "Chip" Miller, an attorney with the Institute for Free Speech, who is representing Raffensperger. "This isn't just unfair - it's unconstitutional." USA Today: Ex-FBI agents just sued Kash Patel. Why their case could prove complex By BrieAnna J. Frank .....A dozen former FBI agents this week sued President Donald Trump’s administration in part on First Amendment grounds over their firings for kneeling during protests over George Floyd’s murder in 2020. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, references nine unnamed women and three unnamed men as plaintiffs… The Trump administration, the lawsuit alleges, fired the agents “in a partisan effort to retaliate against FBI employees that they perceived to be sympathetic to President Trump’s political opponents.” That makes it a “much harder case to win,” at least on First Amendment grounds, because it "requires proving what’s inside someone’s head,” according to senior attorney Brett Nolan of the Institute for Free Speech. Just the News: IRS retaliation, incompetence show why it shouldn't get donor identities, nonprofits tell judges By Greg Piper .....More than 250 groups joined friend-of-the-court briefs supporting Ohio's Buckeye Institute, which endured an IRS audit shortly after it lobbied state leaders to reject President Obama's Medicaid expansion in 2013, against unmasking of the center-right think tank's donors… DOJ's opening brief to the 6th Circuit argues that the 2021 SCOTUS ruling against California's compelled disclosure of donor identities as a First Amendment violation doesn't apply to the "substantial-contributor reporting requirement" in federal law for most 501(c)(3) tax-exempt groups, because the latter is "voluntary" and "rationally related to the tax benefit." It called tax deductions and exemptions "gestures of legislative grace" in a system that relies on "self-assessment and voluntary compliance," and faulted the trial court for applying the "exacting-scrutiny standard" to a law nearly 60 years old rather than the "rational-basis standard applicable to conditions on voluntary government subsidies." Funding conditions are subject only to the lower legal standard sought by DOJ "when they limit how federal funds are used," the Institute for Free Speech responded on behalf of the Buckeye Institute. This "proposed tax-benefit exception to the Constitution transforms the tax code into the supreme law of the land." Federalist Society (Webinar): Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: NRSC v. FEC .....December 10, 2025 at 2 p.m. In National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) the Court is set to consider “whether the limits on coordinated party expenditures in 52 U.S.C. § 30116 violate the First Amendment, either on their face or as applied to party spending in connection with "party coordinated communications" as defined in 11 C.F.R. § 109.37.”. The case kicked off in 2022 when two Republican party committees brought suit against the FEC in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. They contended the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) imposed unconstitutional restrictions on their capacity to coordinate campaign advertising with candidates, and that FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (2001) which had upheld the restrictions as constitutional, had been made unsound by developments in law, facts, and precedent in the intervening time. As required by FECA for constitutional challenges, the district court certified the legal question to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sitting en banc which upheld FECA. The Supreme Court granted cert. and Oral Argument is set to be heard on December 9, 2025. Join us for an expert breakdown of oral arguments. Featuring: Brett Nolan, Senior Attorney, Institute for Free Speech Supreme Court Wall Street Journal: How the Supreme Court Can Improve American Politics By The Editorial Board .....One great achievement of the current Supreme Court has been to restore the First Amendment right of Americans to contribute money to political candidates. It can do so again by banning limits on coordinated spending by candidates and parties in the case it hears on Tuesday, NRSC v. FEC. The Justices have chipped away at campaign-finance restrictions that violate core speech rights. Citizens United(2010) did away with spending limits on corporations and unions. McCutcheon (2014) nixed two-year aggregate contribution limits to national parties and candidate committees. Donors can now spend or contribute unlimited amounts to Super PACs to support (or oppose) candidates. But the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act handcuffs political parties by restricting how much they can spend in coordination with candidates, which varies by state and political office. More money has thus flowed to Super PACs and less to party committees. National Review: What to Watch for in the Supreme Court’s Most Consequential Campaign Finance Case Since Citizens United By Matthew Petersen .....The scope of the Court’s ruling — and its future direction in political spending cases — may turn on how narrowly it chooses to define “corruption.” Since Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Court has held that preventing corruption or its appearance is the only legitimate rationale for upholding contribution limits. And in Citizens United (2010), the Court clarified that “corruption” means quid pro quo exchanges of official actions for political contributions. During oral argument, watch if any justice asks whether the anti-corruption rationale should be further narrowed to exclude the “appearance” of corruption. Some scholars criticize the reliance on the appearance of corruption to justify the speech restrictions that contribution limits impose — arguing the standard rests on a “mirage” that contribution limits meaningfully increase trust in government. Should the Court narrow the anti-corruption rationale further, additional campaign finance regulations would likely be swept away in this case’s wake. SCOTUSblog: Court seems likely to side with Trump on president’s power to fire FTC commissioner By Amy Howe .....The Supreme Court on Monday morning signaled that it was likely to strike down a federal law that restricts the president’s ability to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission. During two and a half hours of argument in the case of Trump v. Slaughter, a solid majority of the justices appeared to agree with the Trump administration that a law prohibiting the president from firing FTC commissioners except in cases of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” violates the constitutional separation of powers between the three branches of government. And although several justices expressed skepticism about a 90-year-old case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, upholding that law, it was less clear that there was a majority ready to overrule it. The Courts Fox News: North Carolina teen sues school after Charlie Kirk tribute sparked ‘criminal investigation’ and censorship By Kristine Parks .....A North Carolina high school student said she was accused of vandalism by her school and told she was being investigated by law enforcement after she painted her school's "spirit rock" with a religious and patriotic tribute to slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. According to a new complaint filed Monday and shared first with Fox News Digital, Gabby Stout, a junior at Ardrey Kell High School, called her school's front office on September 12 to ask if she could paint the school spirit rock with a patriotic message honoring Kirk, who was killed two days prior. Stout was told she could do so as long as the message didn't contain vulgarity or political speech. The complaint states that she and two friends proceeded to paint a heart and an American flag with the message "Freedom 1776," and a tribute to Charlie Kirk: "Live Like Kirk—John 11:25" on September 13. The students also painted their first names on the rock. Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): S. Ct. Declines to Rehear Fifth Circuit's Holding That Public Libraries May Select/Remove Books Based on Viewpoint By Eugene Volokh .....Here's my summary of the May 23 majority en banc opinion by Judge Kyle Duncan in Little v. Llano County, which the Supreme Court just declined to review (you can also read more about the debate on the rights of listeners, Judge James Ho's concurrence on positive vs. negative rights, and the uncertain state of Supreme Court precedent on the subject): FDA Washington Legal Foundation: Proscriptions for Prescription Drug Ads Can’t Surmount First Amendment Hurdles By Zac Morgan .....The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has begun a self-described “crackdown” on direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising. It has sent warning letters to hundreds of companies, vaguely suggesting that their ads may be “misleading” and therefore illegal. And rumors continue to circulate in Washington that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may issue new rules, regulations, or guidance expanding on the compelled disclaimer requirements of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). The apparent goal: “mak[e] broadcast ads much longer and prohibitively expensive.” As anyone who even casually watches television knows, pharmaceutical advertisements must disclose contraindications and potential side effects. The FDCA itself does not limn this demand in great detail, providing that in the case of prescription drug ads, the communication must “stat[e] the name of the drug and its conditions of use,” and that a “brief summary relating to side effects [and] contraindications. . . shall be presented in a clear, conspicuous, and neutral manner.” The details of those disclosures is expressly delegated to “regulations which shall be issued by the Secretary” of HHS. That relevant regulation providing the rules for DTC ads, housed at 21 C.F.R. § 202.1, is 5,765 words—about a thousand words longer than the original Constitution plus the Bill of Rights (whose First Amendment, of course, prohibits compelled speech). Online Speech Platforms Wall Street Journal: Europe’s Foolish War on X.com By The Editorial Board .....The European Union’s decision Friday to impose a fine on Elon Musk’s social-media platform X.com raises a question: What the heck is wrong with these people? Even in Brussels, it’s unusual for a single policy move to create so much economic self-sabotage and diplomatic harm at one go. Reason: Hillary Clinton Is Still Blaming TikTok By Robby Soave .....Hillary Clinton is once again opining on a topic near and dear to her heart: the spread of misinformation on social media, which is a major cause of people adopting policy views that Clinton does not agree with. She is the archetypal political figure utterly convinced she would be president of the U.S. if only the voters stopped listening to social media and instead received all their news and information from the traditional media's credentialed experts... This is a very familiar refrain from Clinton, of course. When she lost the 2016 election, she blamed it all on Facebook, and in particular, Russian bots that supposedly flooded the platform with pro-Trump and anti-Clinton content. If people had put their faith in respectable news outlets, they wouldn't have fallen for the lies of social media, which pollute American democracy and embolden foreign manipulators, according to Clinton. Unfortunately, mainstream and establishment news outlets got the Russian influence story very, very wrong: It turned out that foreign influence on social media was much less voluminous than previously acknowledged. One mainstream organization that performed herculean work setting the record straight, The Washington Post, concluded that "content from the news media and U.S. politicians dwarfed the amount of Russian influence content the electorate was exposed to during the 2016 race." The States Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Speech to the Public Laying Out Legal Theories Isn't Unauthorized Practice of Law By Eugene Volokh .....Thursday's decision in Salazar v. Majestic Realty Co., by California Court of Appeal Justice Helen Bendix, joined by Justices Frances Rothschild and Gregory Weingart, dealt with plaintiff's attempt to leaflet at large privately owned shopping centers. The California Supreme Court has (rightly or wrongly) held that the California Constitution protects such a right; so the court ended up applying pretty much the same rule (to oversimplify slightly) as to leafletting on public sidewalks. And the court held that plaintiffs' leaflets are indeed protected, reversing a trial court's decision to the contrary: Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. For email filters, the subject of this email will always begin with "Institute for Free Speech Media Update." 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