The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech November 9, 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 Washington Examiner: Washington state wages an unconstitutional war on political free speech By Eric Wang .....A Washington state court in Seattle recently imposed a whopping $24.6 million penalty against Meta for political ads sold on Facebook in violation of the state’s campaign finance laws. Hailing the decision, Washington’s attorney general condemned the company for its “arrogance” and demanded that it “apologize for its conduct.” Pot, meet kettle. While the social media giant's political ad policies have (sometimes justifiably) come under bipartisan attack, Washington’s prosecution of Meta and the resulting judgment is a miscarriage of justice. The unreasonable fine is the largest by far ever imposed for a campaign finance law violation, and the underlying Washington law is itself an aberration. The Buffalo News: New York’s complex laws restrict speech and advocacy By Tiffany Donnelly .....A new report says New York restricts more speech about government than any other state in the nation. The Institute for Free Speech, a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes and defends First Amendment rights, ranked the Empire State dead last in freedom of political speech with a score of just 15%. A labyrinth of complex laws is to blame for New York’s failing grade, as the report explains. The state tramples on First Amendment rights at practically every turn, allowing government officials to avoid full accountability from citizens and watchdog groups. That’s not how democracy is supposed to work. People United for Privacy: Chase Bank Demands Donor List from Religious Nonprofit .....When Americans apply for a checking account at a major bank, the last thing they expect to receive is a grilling over their political beliefs. But that’s what one religious nonprofit group recently endured at the hands of JPMorgan Chase. According to former U.S. Senator and Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, Chase not only closed the group’s account without explanation, but also demanded to see their donor list and a list of political candidates the group intended to support... As Tiffany Donnelly from the Institute for Free Speech notes, the bank has failed to answer NCRF’s requests for information about why their account was shuttered. Moreover, demanding the group’s donor list and a list of preferred candidates is an odd way to remedy legitimate concerns about the group’s viability as a banking customer, if there were any. What we do know is that Chase’s demand for donor information raises major concerns for privacy and free speech. “[W]hile banks are not government actors, all nonprofits should fear new requirements for private donor information,” Donnelly warns in The Daily Caller. “As we have seen at government bureaucracies, it only takes one rogue employee with a grudge to publicly reveal reams of sensitive information. Banks, likewise, should realize these risks and respect the strong culture of free expression and tolerance that allowed them to thrive in the United States in the first place.” The Courts Bloomberg Law: US Judiciary Wants Ruling on Staff Political Speech Reviewed By Madison Alder .....Rules preventing the US judiciary’s administrative office employees from engaging in political activity are needed to protect the third branch’s “reputation for impartiality,” the judiciary said in asking for review of a ruling finding the restrictions unlawful. In a Monday filing, the judiciary said a three judge-panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit erred when it held those rules for employees of the Administrative Office of the US Courts violated their constitutional right to free speech. It’s asking for a rehearing before all of the D.C. Circuit’s judges. Courthouse News: ‘Disinformation’ can be a crime, 1st Circuit rules By Thomas F. Harrison .....New Hampshire lawmakers did not run afoul of the Constitution in making it a crime to ridicule people with false statements, the First Circuit held Tuesday, but a concurring judge said it’s time for the Supreme Court to overrule its precedent in this area. “The case could be a vehicle for the Supreme Court to revisit the doctrine of criminal defamation for the first time in more than 50 years,” said Jeffrey Hunt, a First Amendment expert at Parr Brown in Salt Lake City, Utah... In a concurring opinion Tuesday, however, U.S. Circuit Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson called it time to revisit that idea. Such laws “cannot be reconciled with our democratic ideals of robust debate and uninhibited free speech,” Thompson opined. “These laws have their genesis in undemocratic systems that criminalized any speech criticizing public officials,” she added. “It strikes me as out of touch with reality to suggest these laws are not being selectively harnessed or that these laws aren't particularly susceptible to … abuse.” Reason: This Court Case Could Make It a Crime To Be a Journalist in Texas By Billy Binion .....It has been five years since police in Laredo, Texas, mocked and jeered at Priscilla Villarreal, a local journalist often critical of cops, as she stood in the Webb County Jail while they booked her on felony charges. Her crime: asking the government questions. That may seem like a relatively obvious violation of the First Amendment. Yet perhaps more fraught is that, after all this time, the federal courts have still not been able to reach a consensus on that question. Over the years, judges in the 5th Circuit have ping-ponged back and forth over whether jailing a journalist for doing journalism does, in fact, plainly infringe on her free speech rights. Washington Examiner: Federal authorities should pay legal fees for conservative groups targeted by abusive subpoena By Quin Hillyer .....A federal court in Alabama ought to grant a request from two aggrieved groups to sanction the Justice Department for a radically abusive subpoena it filed against the groups. The Eagle Forum of Alabama and the Southeast Law Institute on Nov. 3 filed a motion for sanctions, including for legal fees and time reimbursement, for what amounted to harassment they suffered due to the subpoena. The subpoena, which Judge Liles Burke quashed on Oct. 24, had demanded five years of voluminous records and communications from the two groups related to their support for an Alabama law outlawing sex-change procedures for children. The underlying lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of that Alabama law. Neither of the aggrieved groups were parties to the lawsuit in any way, and the subpoena put what they described as a “massive burden” on them for what the judge described as “little — if any — relevance” to the case at hand... Judge Burke emphatically noted [the First Amendment concern]: “Is the new standard going to be that these kind of subpoenas … go out … to any advocacy organization, and they want e-mails to their members, they want social media posts, they want things that the group just considered in their advocacy? ... I hope we’re not going to go down this road with any organization in addition to Eagle Forum.” AP News: Federal court rules SD ballot measure law curbs free speech By Stephen Groves .....A federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision to block parts of a South Dakota law that would have required ballot petition workers to publicly disclose their personal identification information. The Republican-controlled Legislature in 2020 passed a law that would have required paid ballot measure circulators to list their personal information, including phone number, residential address, email address and driver’s license information, in a directory. The law was just one attempt by lawmakers in recent years to add barriers to ballot measures, which have given progressive causes a chance at enactment in the politically red state. Circuit Judge Steven Grasz wrote in an opinion for a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that being forced to disclose the information would be “chilling in today’s world” and the law would violate the First Amendment. Online Speech Platforms New York Times: Elon Musk Puts His Own Politics on Display on Election Day By Adam Satariano, Ryan Mac and Tiffany Hsu .....Elon Musk began Tuesday by tweeting to his 115 million followers on the platform that they should vote Republican in the midterm elections... Jack Dorsey, a former Twitter chief executive, and Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, previously discussed preferences for candidates or gave millions of dollars to political initiatives. But they did not push people to vote a certain way like Mr. Musk, who pinned one of his messages supporting Republicans to the top of his Twitter feed. It is impossible to tell how many of Mr. Musk’s followers will take his advice. “With a recommendation of how Twitter users should vote, the billionaire owner of a social media platform placing his thumbs on the scales of a major election creates its own risks,” Edward P. Perez, a board member with the OSET Institute, a nonpartisan election security organization, tweeted on Tuesday. Mr. Perez previously helped oversee work at Twitter on civic processes. Candidates and Campaigns VTDigger: ‘So blatantly illegal’: Liam Madden admits to funneling money through family to inflate campaign finance numbers By Sarah Mearhoff .....Liam Madden, the Republican nominee in the open race for Vermont’s lone seat in the U.S. House, during a radio interview Thursday morning described in detail a self-funded scheme to inflate his campaign donations during the primary cycle in order to qualify for candidate debates. Appearing on WVMT’s talk radio program Morning Drive, Madden claimed to have “drained” his wife’s business’s bank account and distributed roughly $25,000 among family members — including his toddler son, June — who then donated the money to his campaign. Madden said he is now recouping the money by collecting a salary from his 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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