This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].
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In the News
By Sabrina Kerns
.....Forsyth County Schools agreed to a settlement on Tuesday in a federal lawsuit filed by the Mama Bears of Forsyth County, taking on litigation costs and limitations around its public participation policy.
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By Gabriella Nunez
.....A group of mothers in Forsyth County said the board of education was silencing them -- and a federal judge partially agreed.
The judge ruled that parts of the Forsyth County Board of Education's public comment policies are unconstitutional. The case speaks to the board's decision to ban mother Alison Hair from board meetings as it violated her First Amendment right to free speech and her right to petition.
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Supreme Court
By Kristen Waggoner
.....The Supreme Court should reject Colorado's attempt to mandate adherence to government orthodoxy and the senseless targeting of decent and honorable Americans—chilling their speech and subjecting their families to death threats and harassment. Compelled speech crushes the speaker's conscience and is a tool of authoritarianism. That is why the High Court has never allowed it and should once again affirm that public accommodation laws cannot be used to compel speech.
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The Courts
By Kendall Tietz
.....A U.S. Army veteran and retired truck driver, who was arrested for holding a sign with the message "God bless the homeless vets" in front of a Georgia city hall, filed two lawsuits Tuesday alleging his First Amendment right to speak freely outside government buildings had been infringed upon.
"If the First Amendment means anything, it must mean that you can hold a sign in front of city hall without being handcuffed," The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) attorney Adam Steinbaugh told Fox News Digital in a statement. "We look forward to vindicating Jeff's rights and reinforcing the rights of all."
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Congress
By Ryan Lovelace
.....Efforts to conceal foreign lobbying are in the Senate’s crosshairs. Sens. Gary Peters, Michigan Democrat, and Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, lead the proposal they say will close a loophole exploited by China to conceal adversaries’ hidden role in lobbying.
Mr. Grassley said Tuesday that the Disclosing Foreign Influence in Lobbying Act is needed because people ought to know if a foreign government or political party is trying to upend American policy...
The proposed change to lobbying law would require disclosure of foreign governments or political parties planning, supervising or controlling a lobbying effort regardless of whether those pulling the strings are footing the entire bill.
The senators’ bill passed by unanimous consent in September after advancing that month through the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, led by Mr. Peters.
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FEC
By Taylor Giorno
Individual donors can now give $3,300 per candidate per election, an unprecedented $400 increase from $2,900 during the 2022 election cycle. That means between the primary and general elections, a donor can give a candidate up to $6,600 — or $9,900 if a race advances to a runoff.
The contribution limit to national party committees also jumped from $36,500 to $41,300 per year. The annual maximum contribution to special national party committee accounts, calculated as three times the contribution limit to the party committees, increased from $109,500 to $123,900.
In effect, the changes could allow an individual donor to give the three national party committees and their special accounts nearly $2 million per party per election cycle.
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Free Expression
By Kaelan Deese
.....The American Jewish Committee is urging the American Bar Association to include in a proposed resolution condemning antisemitism a "widely recognized" definition of the word promoted by a top Holocaust memorial group.
The ABA's House of Delegates is slated to convene on Feb. 6 to debate and vote on a proposed resolution condemning antisemitism but is considering to opt out of using a definition provided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA, after groups such as Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union voiced concerns that the IHRA definition is "dangerously chilling" free speech…
AJC rejected the notion that the definition would label all criticism of Israel as antisemitic, therefore chilling political speech. "It does no such thing," the group said, noting it called on ABA President Deborah Enix-Ross in a letter dated Feb. 1 to adopt the IHRA definition.
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Candidates and Campaigns
By Philip Bump
.....Asked about the expenses by the New York Post in December, the Santos campaign indicated that the figures were “the result of a database error and amendments were filed with the FEC.” But it has been more than a month since that comment, during which time amended reports were filed — ones that still include the $199.99. What’s more, if the costs were actually more than $199.99, there should, by law, be receipts documenting the actual cost.
It’s hard to get around the conclusion that the campaign was trying to obfuscate something, a fair assumption given the personal history of the candidate after which it was named. Last month, the suitably skeptical Campaign Legal Center filed a lengthy complaint with the FEC articulating a number of the odd costs above, among other dubious activity. It would probably be advisable for the Santos campaign to quickly put a lawyer on retainer.
If you know of any who cost precisely $199.99, please let him know.
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The States
By Tyler Martinez
.....The North Dakota legislative session is barely a month old, but a new proposal there is already generating grave constitutional concerns.
In McCulloch v. Maryland, famous Founding Era jurist Chief Justice John Marshall recognized “[t]hat the power to tax involves the power to destroy; that the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create.” Yet HB 1452 would, if enacted, tax contributions for speech at 90% if the money merely came from non-North Dakotans. This would have been abhorrent to the Founders of our nation and violates the First Amendment.
HB 1452 is a functional ban on speech—if a topic happens to be on the ballot, out-of-state speakers cannot spend money in North Dakota on education efforts, campaigning, or other means to support their point of view without being drained by 90%. Whether the topic is hotly debated or complex, national groups often help inform voters of the policy implications of state ballot questions...
Courts around the country recognize that non-residents might have something to say about new laws in a state–and that speech is protected by the First Amendment.
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By Jeremy Turley
.....North Dakota Reps. Mike Schatz and Karla Rose Hanson don’t have much in common when it comes to politics.
Schatz, a New England Republican, is one of the most conservative members of the deep-red House of Representatives. Hanson, a Fargo Democrat, stands for a brand of liberalism that has become endangered in the state Legislature.
But the two lawmakers are cast as unlikely allies in a push to shine light on so-called dark money — campaign spending that comes from unknown sources.
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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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