Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech January 21, 2026 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]. Ed. note: Today marks the 16th anniversary of the Citizens United v. FEC decision. Read last year's Washington Examiner piece from IFS Chairman Bradley A. Smith celebrating the ruling's gift to free speech. In the News Freedom for all Americans: New Michigan SLAPP Style Law In 2026 – What Changes In Motions Practice Under Public Act 52 By Michael Lloyd .....Public Act 52 of 2025, enrolled as House Bill 4045, adopts the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act and builds a special early motion with a discovery freeze, mandatory timelines, fee shifting, and an automatic appeal path… The Institute for Free Speech, which tracks national anti-SLAPP coverage, reports that Michigan became the 39th state with a comprehensive anti-SLAPP statute. House Bill 4045 passed 103-0 in the House and 36-0 in the Senate. The governor signed the bill on December 23, 2025. New from the Institute for Free Speech Free Speech Arguments – Oral Arguments in the Landmark Case That Saved Democracy (Buckley v. Valeo, 1976) .....January 30, 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of Buckley v. Valeo, a landmark First Amendment speech clause case. While the podcast normally airs current oral arguments, we thought that it would be interesting to spotlight the oral arguments in this landmark case during the month of its anniversary. The Buckley Principles By Lee Goodman .....I have been citing Buckley v. Valeo (1976) since I started practicing First Amendment law in 1990. Buckley has stood as the cornerstone of First Amendment jurisprudence in the field of campaign finance since 1976, so fundamental that every lawyer was expected to learn it and invoke it like a secular Bible. No Supreme Court decision has been more significant in shaping the logic that constrains the government’s efforts to restrict election campaign-related speech. Numerous Court decisions over the next five decades have built upon the principles established in Buckley, and it continues to guide First Amendment law to this day. From the beginning, the decision was a thorn in the side of those who sought to restrict campaign speech in the name of “good government” and equitable objectives. Indeed, over the ensuing fifty years, there have been spirited efforts to reinterpret it, reverse it, and even to evade it by altering the First Amendment itself. Such advocates came close once, and only once, in McConnell v. FEC (2003), but have otherwise failed to displace Buckley’s logic. Free speech advocates have relied upon the speech protections established in Buckley and, in doing so, have successfully extended its logic to a broader realm of speech and speakers. The core principles set forth by the per curiam Court in Buckey have endured as the foundation for free speech rights and inspired a number of court decisions expanding free speech in election campaigns. Events FedSoc: Buckley v. Valeo at 50 .....Half a century ago, as the United States prepared to celebrate its bicentennial, the Supreme Court was asked to reckon with the fruits of Watergate. In response to that scandal, Congress had imposed systematic restrictions on the raising and spending of funds in federal campaigns and invited—indeed, commanded—the Court’s review. The result, Buckley v. Valeo, is the central precedent governing the Constitution’s application to political speech and association. Buckley has remained a durable pillar of First Amendment jurisprudence, but it remains controversial across the political spectrum. Attacked as both too restrictive and too permissive, can it survive to the nation’s tricentennial? Please join the Federalist Society for a luncheon discussion of Buckley’s half-century legacy and possible future. Featuring Prof. Joel Gora, Counsel for the ACLU in Buckley v. Valeo Panel: Hon. Bradley A. Smith, Founder & Chairman, Institute for Free Speech; Former Chairman, Federal Election Commission Hon. Allen J. Dickerson, Partner, BakerHostetler; Former Chairman, Federal Election Commission Mr. Adav Noti, Executive Director, Campaign Legal Center; Former Associate General Counsel, Federal Election Commission AEI: First Amendment Originalism .....In January 1976, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Buckley v. Valeo, a landmark decision on the extent to which the First Amendment’s free speech clause protects contributions to political campaigns and their expenditures. Fifty years later, the Supreme Court is set to rule in another case on campaign finance and free speech, but the Court’s jurisprudential makeup is considerably different. While a majority of Supreme Court justices identify as originalists, little legal scholarship has been dedicated to understanding the free speech clause according to its original public meaning. Please join AEI for an event cohosted with the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and supported by the MacArthur Foundation on the original meaning of the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees. Ed. note: IFS Chairman Bradley Smith will be on on Panel II. DOJ CNN: Exclusive: Justice Department leadership pushed FBI to investigate campaign contributions to Minnesota officials By Katelyn Polantz, Evan Perez, and David Wright .....Top Justice Department officials pushed the FBI to investigate political campaigns in Minnesota over whether they illegally benefited from fraud in public service organizations, according to two people familiar with the internal discussions. Some of the Justice Department’s interest, according to one of the sources, comes from a Washington Examiner report from earlier this month that said Gov. Tim Walz, Rep. Ilhan Omar and other state politicians received campaign donations from people implicated in the Minnesota public benefits fraud scheme and community care providers. The Courts Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Year in Prison for Role in Hate Crime Hoax By Eugene Volokh .....So Judge Regina M. Rodriguez (D. Colo.) decided yesterday in U.S. v. Blackcloud; for more on the case, see this November 2024 press release by the U.S. Attorney's office in Colorado: … And from the indictment: During the election, supporters of CANDIDATE 1 placed a campaign sign encouraging others to vote for CANDIDATE 1 in a grassy area on the northwest corner of the intersection of North Union Boulevard and East Fillmore Street, two of Colorado Springs's major traffic arteries. On or about April 23, 2023, between approximately 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. BERNARD, BLACKCLOUD, and WEST worked together to place a wooden cross in front of that campaign sign. Red spray paint, similar in kind to a can later found in the passenger compartment of BLACKCLOUD's car, was used to write the word "nigger" on the sign. The wooden cross was then set on fire…. FCC Reason: How the FCC Became the Speech Police By Jacob Sullum .....Brendan Carr, an avowed First Amendment champion whom Trump appointed to run the FCC, sees correcting anti-Trump bias as an important part of his job. That understanding of the FCC's mission explains why Carr seriously entertained the possibility that CBS committed "broadcast news distortion" by editing a 60 Minutes interview with then–Vice President Kamala Harris in a way that made her seem slightly more cogent. It explains why Carr bragged about requiring changes to journalistic practices at CBS as a condition for approving Skydance Media's acquisition of Paramount, the network's parent company. Carr's conception of "the public interest" was also at the root of his most flagrant attempt to exert control over broadcast content: the regulatory threats that preceded ABC's suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in September. Trump Administration Washington Post: Trump pardons former Puerto Rico governor in campaign finance case By Brianna Tucker and Jeremy Roebuck .....President Donald Trump pardoned former Puerto Rico governor Wanda Vázquez Garced, who pleaded guilty last year to a campaign finance violation, and two co-defendants in the federal case. The pardons marked the latest instance of Trump using his clemency powers to reward allies and those who have financially supported his political operation. It also marked yet another case undone amid a wider Justice Department retreat from the type of sweeping public corruption investigations it has pursued in the past. In 2022, Vázquez was charged in a felony bribery case alleging that in return for promises of political favors, she accepted payoffs in the form of illegal campaign donations related to her unsuccessful 2020 gubernatorial bid. Free Expression Hollywood Reporter: Matt Damon Says Some Actors Would Prefer “to Go to Jail” Than Be Canceled By Carly Thomas .....While promoting their new movie, The Rip, the Oscar winners stopped by the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where the host brought up the “idea that one thing you said or one thing you did, and now we’re going to exaggerate that to the fullest extent and cast you out of civilization for life.” Damon, who agreed with Joe Rogan that cancel culture is a crazy concept, went on to suggest that some people in the industry would probably have preferred to go to prison rather than face lifetime public scrutiny. “I bet some of those people would have preferred to go to jail for 18 months or whatever, and then come out and say, ‘I paid my debt. Like, we’re done. Like, can we be done?’ The thing about that getting kind of excoriated, publicly like that, it just never ends. And it will just follow you to the grave,” the Oppenheimer actor said. Affleck went on to compare cancel culture to the “kind of sixth-grade instinct” to point fingers and be like, ‘Oh, he’s in trouble.'” “Humans have dark, fucked up instincts too sometimes to isolate people or get joy out of someone else’s… they’re in trouble, because maybe because part of it is saying, ‘Hey, it’s not me.’ So if you can point the finger, everyone’s looking over there, we feel safer, you know?” he continued. The States Colorado Sun: Nicolais: Colorado doesn’t need a billionaires’ political welfare act By Mario Nicolais .....Members of the Colorado legislature have been working on a bill that would bar “artificial legal entities” — anything but natural human beings — from engaging in elections. They are likely under the misguided opinion that it will help get money out of Colorado politics. But they may as well call this the “Billionaires’ Political Welfare Act” if it proceeds. It is not hard to understand where the impetus from this bill came from — a longheld, entrenched misunderstanding of the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC. New York Times: Indiana Judge and His Wife Are Shot at Their Suburban Home By Stephanie Saul .....An Indiana judge and his wife were shot at their home on Sunday, prompting concerns for the safety of the state’s judiciary after recent increases in threats and violence against public officials nationally. The police in Lafayette, Ind., said on Monday that they were investigating the shootings of the judge, Steven P. Meyer of Tippecanoe County Superior Court, and his wife, Kimberly Meyer. Both were in stable condition. Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. 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