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 Erik Sandoval
.....Attorneys representing the group Moms for Liberty officially appealed a federal judge’s ruling on Wednesday, in which he sided with Brevard Public Schools in a case concerning free speech.
The group’s Brevard County chapter and individual members sued the school district in November 2021 in federal court in Orlando and sought a preliminary injunction against the public-participation policy.
Among other things, the group contended that speakers are frequently interrupted for criticizing the school board, including for comments deemed “personally directed” at board members.
On Feb. 13, Federal Judge Roy B. Dalton ruled in a favor of a summary judgement, ruling the school district’s public participation policy did not violate free speech rights...
At the time of the ruling, Moms for Liberty’s attorney said he planned to appeal.
“We are disappointed with the court’s decision and strongly disagree with it,” attorney Ryan Morrison with the Institute for Free Speech said. “The First Amendment protects parents’ right to criticize their public school system and elected school board without censorship. We will appeal and ultimately prevail, just as the Institute for Free Speech has in other school board cases across the country.”
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The Courts
By Douglas Hanks
.....A federal judge on Tuesday sided with a Miami-Dade County commissioner and a local mayor in striking down Florida’s new ban on paid lobbying by elected officials, ruling the amendment to the state Constitution was too broad and poorly defined to comply with federal protections for free speech.
The injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami temporarily suspends enforcement of a portion of the amendment Florida voters approved in 2018 and which took effect Jan. 1.
That portion bars officeholders from earning money in their private lives as lobbyists. One of the plaintiffs in the suit, former Miami-Dade school board member Lubby Navarro, resigned her post rather than quit her full-time job as a lobbyist for Broward’s public hospital system.
In siding with the plaintiffs — including René Garcia, a Miami-Dade commissioner elected in 2020, and Javier Fernández, the mayor of South Miami, both former state legislators — Bloom ruled the amendment infringes on their First Amendment rights to collect money in exchange for trying to influence other elected officials.
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.....A federal appeals court has ruled that Stamford police officer Richard Gasparino violated Michael Friend’s rights during a protest in which Friend held a “Cops Ahead” sign on a sidewalk near a Stamford police cellphone sting site. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision overturns a lower court decision and sides with Friend in his claims that Gasparino violated Friend’s First Amendment rights to free speech and information and Fourth Amendment right against malicious prosecution.
In the February 27 decision, Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Gerard Lynch, Richard Sullivan, and Steven Menashi ruled that Friend was “speaking on a matter of public concern” by protesting police, and that Gasparino’s decision to arrest Friend and confiscate his signs violated Friend’s First Amendment right to free speech.
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By Joseph Bustos
.....The South Carolina House Freedom Caucus is taking its colleagues to federal court. The caucus, an ultra-conservative wing of S.C. House Republicans, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against House Ethics Committee members — Republicans and Democrats, chaired by state Rep. Jay Jordan, R-Florence — over free speech grounds. The group, led by state Rep. Adam Morgan, R-Greenville, is asking the court to equal the playing field for legislative caucuses, allowing them, most importantly, to solicit donations and get involved in campaigns similar to the two main party caucuses in the lower chamber. State ethics law only allows the Republican, Democratic, Legislative Black Caucus and Women’s caucuses to raise money, openly advocate for candidates and hire staff.
Other caucuses, such as the military caucus, family caucus and freshmen caucuses, cannot. “Our political speech is muzzled by current ethics laws. Certain groups are disfavored,” Morgan said. “This strikes at the core of the issues that we have here in Columbia, where those in power use rules, norms and even state law to create a culture of conformity and protect their power.”
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Congress
By Ashley Gold
.....The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted Wednesday to advance a bill that would allow President Joe Biden to ban TikTok from the United States, despite objections that the bill is too broad…
The bill instructs Biden to impose penalties, including a possible ban, if the administration finds TikTok knowingly transferred TikTok user data to "any foreign person" associated with the Chinese government…
Democrats on the committee were largely opposed. The American Civil Liberties Union said the bill would violate free speech rights.
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The Media
By Andy Ngo
.....A San Diego courthouse crime reporter and contributor to The Post Millennial is being targeted by the defense attorney of an accused violent Antifa ringleader in an attempt to get her reporting censored.
Eva Knott, who also contributes to local weekly newspaper San Diego Reader, was the target of a legal motion by far-left San Francisco attorney John Hamasaki on Friday. Hamasaki asks the judge to strip her of her reporting and photography privileges inside the courtroom and to ban her because she works under a pen name. For safety reasons due to past coverage on gang-related criminal trials, Knott uses a pen name.
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Nonprofits
By Heidi Przybyla
.....A network of political non-profits formed by judicial activist Leonard Leo moved at least $43 million to a new firm he is leading, raising questions about how his conservative legal movement is funded.
Leo’s own personal wealth appeared to have ballooned as his fundraising prowess accelerated since his efforts to cement the Supreme Court’s conservative majority helped to bring about its decision to overturn abortion rights. Most recently, Leo reaped a $1.6 billion windfall from a single donor in what is likely the biggest single political gift in U.S. history.
Fundraising reports for 2022 have yet to be filed but spending by Leo’s aligned nonprofits on his for-profit business in 2020 and 2021 demonstrates the extent to which his money-raising benefited his own bottom line. And it shows how campaign-style politics — and the generous paydays that go along with it — are now adjacent to the Supreme Court, the one U.S. institution that’s supposed to be immune to it.
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The States
By Matt Friedman and Daniel Han
.....A massive campaign finance bill that would defang New Jersey’s election watchdog and massively increase campaign contribution limits stalled Monday amid press scrutiny and an outcry from advocates.
The “Election Transparency Act,” NJ S2866 (22R), had been scheduled for final votes in the state Senate and Assembly but was pulled from both houses’ agendas just before their voting sessions.
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By Douglas Soule
.....Weeks after Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wants to make it easier to sue media outlets, proposed legislation that would do that and more has emerged in the Republican-led Florida Legislature.
Sponsored by Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, that proposal, House Bill 991, would lower the bar on who’s considered a public figure under defamation law – and lower the bar on what’s considered defamation…
“This bill is very alarming, because it threatens one of the bedrock principles of free speech in America, which is the right to criticize government officials and other powerful figures without fear of financial or other types of retribution,” said Katie Fallow, senior counsel at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute.
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By Jimmy Cloutier
.....The Virginia General Assembly ended the 2023 legislative session on Saturday having passed only one campaign finance bill to the dismay of activists who say the state’s election laws need desperate reform.
Virginia’s laws governing political spending are among the least restrictive in the country, with virtually no limits on the amount of money candidates can accept from donors. The state is also one of five that allow private companies to make direct political donations, while other state and federal regulations restrict corporate giving to PACs.
Under this system, total state-level fundraising in legislative races across Virginia more than tripled over the last two decades, from $38.9 million in 1999 to nearly $134.8 million in 2019, when adjusted for inflation, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of campaign finance reports.
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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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