This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].
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The Courts
By Karl Etters
.....Leon County Commissioner Bill Proctor signed onto a federal challenge to a 2018 constitutional amendment, which created restrictions barring former elected officials from lobbying their former governmental bodies.
Proctor is among a handful of other current officials in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach County, who are former statehouse members now serving at the local level, who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in late December.
It targets a 2018 constitutional amendment approved by 79% of voters, which was recently enacted by laws passed by the Florida Legislature in 2022.
The amendment bars current officials from lobbying other governmental agencies while in office and puts a six-year restriction on lobbying their former body once an official leaves office. Previous moratoriums were two years.
The challenge claims the amendment is over broad and violates the First Amendment by stifling political speech. Oral arguments have been scheduled for Jan. 27.
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By Josh Gerstein
.....A federal appeals court panel appears likely to strike down part of a law Congress overwhelmingly passed in 2018 to crack down on online advertising websites such as Backpage that were viewed as facilitating prostitution.
During arguments on Wednesday in a lawsuit brought by advocates for legalizing prostitution, a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel expressed deep skepticism about the constitutionality of language in the anti-sex trafficking law that makes it a crime to operate a computer service with the intent to promote prostitution.
Two of the three judges on the panel, Patricia Millett and Harry Edwards, seemed inclined to rule that aspects of the statute known as the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or FOSTA-SESTA, violate the First Amendment because it appears to criminalize efforts to legalize prostitution.
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Congress
By Taylor Giorno and Anna Massoglia
.....Democratic Colorado Rep. Jason Crow reintroduced the End Dark Money Act on Monday, his first legislative action of the 118th Congress.
The bill aims to crack down on “dark money” groups spending to influence U.S. elections by repealing a restriction in the omnibus bill preventing the Internal Revenue Service from using its funding to clarify rules governing how much political activity 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups can engage in...
Legislation aiming to close loopholes that allow dark money to pour into U.S. elections have failed repeatedly over the last decade. The DISCLOSE Act, reintroduced several times by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D–R.I.) over the last 10 years, failed another vote in the Senate in September despite bipartisan support and backing from President Joe Biden. Among other provisions, the bill would have required dark money groups that make contributions to federal political committees or spend on any communications referring to a federal candidate to disclose contributions greater than $10,000 to the FEC.
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FEC
.... To start our second season, Early Returns is delighted to have the newly elected chair of the FEC, Dara Lindenbaum...
Dara joins Jan to talk about what is going on at the commission today and its agenda for the next election. More specifically, she speaks about relationships in the FEC, its budget, and audit procedures and potential audit targets.
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DOJ
By Ryan Lovelace
.....The handbook, rewritten in 2021, confirms a decade-old leak showcasing the bureau’s collaboration with the CIA and NSA for FBI probes that may involve surveillance without court orders against people not accused of any crimes. Such probes are known as “assessments” at the FBI...
Cato Institute senior fellow Patrick Eddington said the updated rule book shows that the FBI is confident that it will not face consequences for its conduct.
“The bureau is continuing to hide the fact that 1) they can and clearly do use informants to penetrate domestic civil society organizations where those informants may, either on their own or at FBI direction, attempt to influence the organization’s actions,” Mr. Eddington said in an email. “And 2) [they] employ searches of CIA and NSA data streams on U.S. persons or civil society organizations absent a criminal predicate via assessments.”
Mr. Eddington said both practices should be prohibited by law and Congress will have a chance to do that this year.
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Fundraising
By Alexandra Berzon and Grace Ashford
.....A month before George Santos was elected to Congress, one of his large donors received a call asking him to consider making another sizable contribution.
The request came from a Republican loyalist calling on behalf of RedStone Strategies, which was described in an email to the donor as an “independent expenditure” group that was supporting Mr. Santos’s bid to flip a Democratic House seat in New York…
The donor came through: Days later, on Oct. 21, he sent $25,000 to a Wells Fargo Bank account belonging to RedStone Strategies.
Three months later, Mr. Santos is now in Congress, but where the donor’s money went is unclear. The Federal Election Commission said it had no evidence that RedStone Strategies was registered as a political group, and there do not appear to be any records documenting its donors, contributions or spending.
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Online Speech Platforms
By Joe Biden
.....As my administration works to address these challenges with the legal authority we have, I urge Democrats and Republicans to come together to pass strong bipartisan legislation to hold Big Tech accountable...
To keep Americans on their platforms, Big Tech companies often use users’ personal data to direct them toward extreme and polarizing content that is likely to keep them logged on and clicking. All too often, tragic violence has been linked to toxic online echo chambers…
[We] need Big Tech companies to take responsibility for the content they spread and the algorithms they use. That’s why I’ve long said we must fundamentally reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects tech companies from legal responsibility for content posted on their sites.
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By Zach Weissmueller and Regan Taylor
.....[The Twitter Files] show that the company stifled debate over important policy issues by shadowbanning certain accounts for no good reason and then misleading the public. They show that Twitter was routinely strongarmed by the White House and the FBI into complying with frivolous takedown requests. And they provide evidence that the intelligence community likely influenced the decision to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story during Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign.
"Almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true," Elon Musk said on the All-In Podcast in late December. "Is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn't turn out to be true?"
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The States
By Stephen Wolf
.....Democratic legislators in Minnesota have introduced a bill this month that would enact a major overhaul of the state’s election laws covering voting access and campaign finance after the party won back the state Senate majority from Republicans in 2022 and in doing so regained full control over state government for the first time in nearly a decade. Reforming the state’s election process is a top priority for Democratic lawmakers, Gov. Tim Walz and Secretary of State Steve Simon, meaning this or similar legislation is likely to pass.
The new bill, tiled the "Democracy for the People Act," contains a number of provisions…including creat[ing] a public campaign finance system by giving voters two $25 "Democracy Dollar" vouchers that they can donate to a candidate or party, [and]
requir[ing] "dark money" independent campaign groups to disclose the identities of their donors.
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By Carmen Forman
.....After millions of dollars in dark money flowed into Oklahoma elections last year, the state’s Republican Party chairman is seeking campaign finance reforms.
A.J. Ferate asked the Oklahoma Ethics Commission on Wednesday to consider updating campaign finance rules so political parties can raise more money and provide additional assistance to state candidates.
The changes could help level the playing field so political parties can attempt to compete with dark money groups, Ferate said…
Ferate makes four requests of the five-member commission that he said could better align state campaign finance rules with federal law.
He wants the commission to consider scrapping contribution limits for political parties...
Ferate also asked that the commission reconsider language in the state constitution that bans corporations from influencing elections through campaign contributions.
Specifically, he wants corporations to be able to help fund political parties’ operational costs...
He also wants state candidates to be able to transfer money to the party during a campaign, which is allowed for federal candidates...
Ferate also is asking the commission to reconsider requiring state political parties to report contributions auxiliary political groups make to candidates.
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