This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].
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Ed. note: The Daily Media Update will return Monday, October 3.
In the News
By The Editorial Board
.....The election-law police are always looking for new ways to limit political speech, and their next victim may be public-interest law firms. That’s now being put to the test in Texas, where the state Ethics Commission could decide Thursday whether a law firm can be barred from offering pro-bono legal help to a candidate.
Under the commission’s draft advisory opinion, a public-interest firm that provides free legal services to a candidate would be making an in-kind campaign contribution. Legal billing adds up quickly, so any firm that offered pro-bono help would also risk a change in its tax-exempt status and disclosure of its donors.
The issue arose when the Institute for Free Speech asked the Ethics Commission for an advisory opinion on whether its legal help would be allowed to challenge the constitutionality of a Texas law or regulation issued by the Ethics Commission.
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The Courts
By Michael Shapiro
.....A New Jersey law prohibiting banks from contributing to state and local campaigns doesn’t apply to their trade association, the Third Circuit said Wednesday.
The US District Court for the District of New Jersey previously held that the restriction on donations to political parties and campaigns was constitutional, rejecting a challenge from the New Jersey Bankers Association, although it held that the law’s prohibition on independent expenditures violated the First Amendment. But the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed, ruling that the trial court didn’t need to weigh in on the First Amendment questions in the first ...
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By Adam Ferrise
.....A man’s lawsuit against Parma police for wrongfully arresting and charging him over a parody Facebook account he created that mocked the department is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Anthony Novak’s attorneys filed their appeal Monday to the country’s high court to try and reverse an appeals court decision that found Parma officers’ qualified immunity shielded them from the lawsuit. Attorneys asked the Supreme Court to take up the issue of qualified immunity in general and specifically in cases involving protected speech.
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By Jonathan Stempel
.....Elon Musk's lawyers urged a federal appeals court to throw out a provision in his 2018 consent decree with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requiring a Tesla Inc lawyer to vet some of his posts on Twitter.
In a brief filed late on Tuesday with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, lawyers for Musk called the pre-approval mandate a "government-imposed muzzle" that inhibited and chilled his lawful speech on a broad range of topics.
They also said the requirement violated the U.S. Constitution, and undermined public policy by running "contrary to the American principles of free speech and open debate."
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By Eugene Volokh
.....As I noted yesterday, I'm still trying to fully digest the Netchoice v. Paxton opinions, but I passed along two commentaries from top scholars on the subject, one entirely critical from Prof. Genevieve Lakier (Chicago) and one that's mostly critical from Prof. Alan Rozenshtein (Minnesota). I thought I'd also pass along are more positive commentary from Prof. Adam Candeub (Michigan State):
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By Betsy McCaughey
.....A staggering 99% of Twitter employees who make political contributions give to Democrats. It’s almost as lopsided at Facebook and Alphabet (Google’s parent company), according to Federal Election Commission records.
Relying on these left-leaning tech platforms to be evenhanded was always naïve. But recent evidence — email correspondence between Big Tech executives and some 45 Biden administration officials — suggests a danger even bigger than Silicon Valley bias. Government is actually calling the shots on what to censor. The US Constitution bars government from censoring, so Team Biden has deputized Silicon Valley to do its dirty work.
The complicity between the Biden administration and Big Tech should frighten all Americans. It’s like a vise tightening its grip, snuffing out freedom. That makes reining in Big Tech even more urgent. On Friday, the opportunity arrived.
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Congress
By Sen. Marco Rubio
.....“In our democracy, the outcome of elections must be left to voters — not special interests.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote those words in support of the Disclose Act, a bill that Senate Democrats resurrected last week to combat “dark money” in political campaigns that was shot down by Senate Republicans.
Of course, Mrs. Pelosi uses the term “dark money” to attack conservatives while she literally stands shoulder to shoulder with liberal mega-donor George Soros. But set that hypocrisy aside for a minute. I’m more concerned by the fact that, even as Democrats advocate greater transparency in politics, they are allowing foreign influencers to make illegal donations to American political organizations.
Yes, you read that correctly. In a massive oversight, federal law does not require legally designated political organizations to ask for donors’ card verification values (CVVs), which is the standard way to protect against online donations from fraudulent accounts.
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Independent Groups
By Nick Reynolds
.....The founder of Occupy Democrats is defending the well-known Democratic activist group's work after critics have alleged that the brunt of the organization's spending over the last several years largely went to a handful of liberal consulting firms, including an LLC owned by the founder and his brother…
Rivero also argued that, as a super PAC, his organization was unable to donate any money directly to candidates, and that Occupy Democrats had been relegated to making independent expenditures in a handful of races…
According to paperwork filed with the Federal Election Commission, Occupy Democrats is something commonly referred to as a "Carey Committee," which the FEC defines as a hybrid political action committee able to give money to candidates directly as well as make independent expenditures to oppose or support a certain candidate, so long as the funds for each operation are kept in separate bank accounts.
However, this was a fact Omar Rivero was unaware of after a recent change in their classification with the FEC, his brother Rafael told Newsweek Tuesday.
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Candidates and Campaigns
By Brandon Gillespie
.....Oregon Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tina Kotek has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a group bankrolled by "dark money," despite railing against "unlimited" and "undisclosed" political donations in a recent social media post, according to campaign finance disclosures reviewed by Fox News Digital.
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The States
By Brad Cooper
.....The state ethics commission on Wednesday dismissed complaints against a nonprofit group of Johnson County neighbors that was initially found to be a political action committee that needed to disclose how it was funded.
The commission agreed to drop two ethics complaints against Fresh Vision OP's members as part of an agreement that called for issuing a "letter of caution" to the group.
Among other things, the letter will include an explanation of how to be civically engaged without violating the law and what they would need to do to register as a political action committee.
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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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The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the First Amendment rights to freely speak, assemble, publish, and petition the government. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org.
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