The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech October 3, 2022 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 Houston Chronicle: Civil rights groups push back as Texas considers limiting nonprofit legal work for candidates By Taylor Goldenstein .....The Texas Ethics Commission postponed a vote Thursday as it considers barring nonprofits from offering pro bono legal work to political candidates and committees by considering the services an in-kind campaign contribution... The ethics commission’s move to reconsider Thursday came amid an outcry from a broad range of public-interest nonprofits... David Keating, president of the Institute for Free Speech, a Washington-based nonprofit that opposes limits on political speech and advertising and which requested the opinion, said he was encouraged by Thursday’s discussion in which commissioners seemed receptive to an exemption for groups like his that normally do not charge for their services. “Most candidates can’t afford to hire counsel and spend probably hundreds of thousands of dollars challenging the constitutionality of a law where the opinion may not come out until after the election,” Keating said. “No candidate in their right mind is going to do that … Basically, the opinion would slam the courthouse door shut to candidates and most political committees.” The ACLU of Texas was also among the groups that submitted comments to the commission. Constitutional Chats Podcast: Ep. 136 - Countdown to Bill of Rights Day--The First Amendment, Part I ..... Join our student panel (featuring new panelist Yashica Nabar) and guest speaker Professor Bradley Smith of Capital University Law School in Ohio for this enlightening discussion about the First Amendment. Listen on Spotify or Apple. Watch on Youtube. Supreme Court NBC News: Supreme Court takes up internet company immunity in YouTube dispute By Lawrence Hurley .....The Supreme Court on Monday stepped into the politically divisive issue of whether tech companies should have immunity over problematic content posted by users, agreeing to hear a case alleging that YouTube helped aid and abet the killing of an American woman in the 2015 Islamic State terrorist attacks in Paris. The Courts Protocol: Big Tech is trying to block the Texas social media law — again By Issie Lapowsky .....Tech industry groups are once again pleading with the 5th Circuit to block HB 20, Texas' on-again, off-again social media law, which the court recently allowed to take effect. In an unopposed motion filed Thursday, the plaintiffs in the ongoing legal battle, NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, asked the court to "preserve the status quo" until the Supreme Court has a chance to review the issues raised in the case. The Texas law aims to prohibit online platforms from moderating content on the basis of viewpoint, a limitation that tech companies argue infringes on their First Amendment rights and conflicts with broad authority they have under Section 230 to moderate content. Congress New York Times: Hints of Republican Concern About Unlimited Campaign Cash By Blake Hounshell .....So, as Democrats have embraced the world of dark money, some Republicans have begun to take a second look at Citizens United. Don’t get me wrong: “Campaign-finance reform” is still very much a Democratic project. A bill in the House calling for a constitutional amendment to abrogate the Citizens United ruling and allow states to regulate money in elections as they see fit has just one G.O.P. co-sponsor: Representative John Katko of New York, who is retiring at the end of his term this year. Katko supported the impeachment of President Donald Trump after the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, so he’s not exactly a bellwether of Republican sentiment in Congress. But this week, as I tagged along with members of American Promise, a nonpartisan group promoting a 28th Amendment to the Constitution that would track closely with Katko’s bill, I found some faint signs that the winds were shifting on the right. Washington Post: Politics ain’t beanbag. It isn’t philanthropy, either. By Charles Lane .....In fact, pro-Democratic dark-money groups and mega-donors have gotten pretty good at this game, too; they outspent their Republican counterparts $1.5 billion to $900 million in 2020, according to the Times. There is always the risk that the Supreme Court would strike down the Disclose Act anyway; non-conservative organizations, notably the American Civil Liberties Union, have opposed it as a threat to the donor privacy that enables funding of sometimes unpopular speech. Kennedy proposes an alternative policy principle: “If the American taxpayer is not directly subsidizing a gift, the donor has the right to privacy. But if a donation is incentivized by avoiding capital-gains taxes or supported by a charitable deduction, we have every right to know the donors and the causes that we are subsidizing.” Wall Street Journal (LTE): Arabella Advisors Responds on ‘Dark Money’ Donations By Rick Cruz, President and CEO, Arabella Advisors .....Your editorial “The Stifle Speech Act of 2022” (Sept. 22) states that our firm, Arabella Advisors, “funds among many other groups Demand Justice, which lobbies for Democrats to pack the Supreme Court.” Not so. Arabella Advisors is a service provider that supports its nonprofit clients with operational services. We do not fund Demand Justice and we are not a donor, a partisan organization, a counterpart to Leonard Leo’s groups or a “dark money” organization... While it’s true that we work closely with a variety of nonprofit organizations, the reality is that we work for our clients, not the other way around. New York Times: Lawmakers Confront a Rise in Threats and Intimidation, and Fear Worse By Stephanie Lai, Luke Broadwater and Carl Hulse .....Members of Congress in both parties are experiencing a surge in threats and confrontations as a rise in violent political speech has increasingly crossed over into the realm of in-person intimidation and physical altercation. In the months since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which brought lawmakers and the vice president within feet of rioters threatening their lives, Republicans and Democrats have faced stalking, armed visits to their homes, vandalism and assaults. It is part of a chilling trend that many fear is only intensifying as lawmakers scatter to campaign and meet with voters around the country ahead of next month’s midterm congressional elections. Free Expression Wall Street Journal: Free Speech Is the Most Fundamental American Value By Laurence H. Silberman .....As I noted in a recent opinion, the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech is not just a legal doctrine. It represents the most fundamental value in American democracy. A national commitment to uninhibited political speech is a crucial aspect of our country’s culture. It is the penumbra around the First Amendment, which, by itself, only prohibits government control of speech. Unless all American institutions are committed to free political speech, I fear the strain on the First Amendment’s guarantees will become unbearable. Those seeking to suppress free speech sometimes think that provocative, even extreme and obnoxious, political speech is dangerously divisive. It should be suppressed. I think that is profoundly wrong. I think it is the very opposite. Toleration of all versions of political speech is the crucial unifying factor in our country. Online Speech Platforms Washington Post: Tech companies are gaming out responses to the Texas social media law By Elizabeth Dwoskin .....Despite their hope that the Supreme Court ultimately will reject the law, Silicon Valley companies are starting to prepare for worst-case scenarios, gaming out responses in planning exercises called “sandboxing,” said Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel for NetChoice, one of the tech company lobbying groups that has challenged the Texas law. The group’s members include Meta, TikTok, Google, Nextdoor, and dozens of other services. The strategizing falls into four general areas, the most radical of which includes the possibility of the companies shutting down their services entirely in Texas and potentially any other states where copycat bills have been introduced. Tech companies could also build the “pop-up screens” that would greet users, letting them know that the material they are about to see could be highly disturbing and giving them the option to opt-in to a more moderated environment, said Daphne Keller, director of the Program on Platform Regulation at the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford University. Just the News: Enemies list? Fed-backed censorship machine targeted 20 news sites By Greg Piper .....The private consortium that reported election "misinformation" to tech platforms during the 2020 election season, in "consultation" with federal agencies, targeted several news organizations in its dragnet. Websites for Just the News, New York Post, Fox News, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Epoch Times and Breitbart were identified among the 20 "most prominent domains across election integrity incidents" that were cited in tweets flagged by the Election Integrity Partnership and its collaborators. The Washington Post, New York Times and CNN also appeared on the list, though the consortium's after-action report emphasizes most of the mainstream media reports "were referenced as fact-checks" that played a "corrective role" against "misleading narratives." The States NBC Bay Area: Disclosure Clarity Act Into Law Require Disclosure of Top Funders for Political Ads .....Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a state Senate bill into law Friday that will require online political image and banner advertisements to clearly show their top funders on the ad itself. Senate Bill 1360, the Disclosure Clarity Act, will be the first law in the country to require this in political advertisements. It will also require formatting changes to make the top three funders of television and video ad disclosures much more readable... "Gov. Newsom's signature of the groundbreaking Disclosure Clarity Act and Ballot DISCLOSE Act will help ensure Californians are the most informed voters in the nation, no matter how lopsided the campaign spending," said Trent Lange, president of the non-partisan California Clean Money Campaign. 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." 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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