- “There are about 10 to 20 [criminal libel] prosecutions each year throughout the country” [Eugene Volokh on criminal defamation complaint by Montana judge against election opponent who had accused him of misconduct]
- “Shutting down Fake News Could Move Us Closer to a Modern-Day ‘1984’” [Flemming Rose and Jacob Mchangama, Washington Post/Cato]
- Glad to be in America with our First Amendment: EU acts to adopt Europe-wide rules requiring social media companies to take down so-called hate speech [Mashable, Engadget] More: DW. And a decree ordering media to take down news officially dubbed false is one that would *not* read better in the original German [Flemming Rose, Cato]
- Idaho defends its ag-gag law against First Amendment challenge before Ninth Circuit [Baylen Linnekin]
- “The playing field for independent speech has improved, but there are challenges still for small groups that want to influence elections.” [Cato podcast with campaign attorneys Michael G. Adams and Neil Reiff]
- On the origins of “no-platforming” [Mark Peters, Boston Globe, quotes me]
Posts Tagged ‘campaign regulation’
Free speech roundup
- Until late night talker Stephen Colbert became a target, many people didn’t realize the FCC looks into every complaint of on-air obscenity. Time to revisit that practice? [Amy B. Wang and Callum Borchers, Washington Post; Volokh]
- First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams on his new book, The Soul of the First Amendment [Cato podcast, panel discussion with Abrams, Ronald Collins, and Ilya Shapiro, Roger Pilon moderating]
- Worth a read: promote legal liability for speech and watch it come back to bite you, time and again [Jason Harrow, Take Care Blog on purported incitement by President Trump at his rallies]
- Irish blasphemy investigation of comedian/actor Stephen Fry, though quickly dropped, prompts major political parties in New Zealand to pledge repeal of that nation’s blasphemy law [Independent, U.K.]
- Singing legend Joan Baez on letting the other side have its say [Facebook post]
- On the Macron email dump shortly before the French election, Will Saletan: “All advocates of limits on campaign speech should think about this: Law-abiders can’t respond, so lawbreakers have the field to themselves.”
Free speech roundup
- Good news for Donald Trump! Sticking with speech-protective opinion rule, New York judge dismisses libel suit by PR consultant against him based on his derogatory tweets [ABA Journal]
- “Jawboning” at FCC, under which media companies bend to commissioners’ wishes on content and hiring rather than risk their disapproval, should be recognized as danger to both First Amendment and rule of law [Brent Skorup and Christopher Koopman, Regulation via Cato Institute Tumblr summary]
- The family of Ahmed Mohamed, of schoolboy clock fame, may have to pay $200,000 or more to targets of frivolous libel suits [Popehat]
- Harsh epithets, calls for investigation and accusations of whitewashing, rhetorical comparisons to infamous persons could all lead to media liability if D.C. Court of Appeals reasoning in Michael Mann case isn’t overturned [Ilya Shapiro and Thomas Berry, Cato, earlier]
- NYC, San Francisco criminalize listing property on AirBnB except on authorized conditions. A question of commercial speech [Glenn Lammi, WLF]
- Can Colorado regulate groups that run ads with the message “call your lawmaker to support this bill”? [Ilya Shapiro and Thomas Berry]
December 14 roundup
- Irony alert: Get-money-out-of-politics measure passes 53-47 in Howard County, Md. after backers outspend foes 10-1 [Len Lazarick, Maryland Reporter]
- “Hershey’s Scoffs At Class Action Over Amount Of Kisses In Bags” [Dee Thompson, Legal NewsLine/Forbes]
- Philippines bar responds after president Duterte menaces lawyers of drug suspects [Tetch Torres-Tupas/Inquirer, InterAksyon and letter]
- What should Trump do re: conflicts? Richard Painter and David Rifkin discuss [Federalist Society podcast; earlier]
- Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, lately seen in this space using subpoena power to go after political adversaries who hadn’t taken a dime from ExxonMobil, also known for curious assault on gunmakers [David Meyer Lindenberg, Fault Lines]
- “N.Y. Top Court Rules Litigation Finance Transaction Violates Champerty Doctrine” [Kevin LaCroix, Alison Frankel on Justinian Capital SPC v. WestLB AG] “An epic legal battle with big implications for litigation funding” [The Economist on Liberian insurance claims against Cigna]
“Law firm ‘bonuses’ tied to political donations”
After initially resisting, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has agreed to return nearly $130,000 in donations she and her PAC received from the Boston-based Thornton Law Firm, known for asbestos plaintiff’s litigation. An investigation found the law firm paid $1.4 million in bonuses in patterns strongly suggesting they were being used to cover “straw donations” nominally from partners [co-published Boston Globe/Open Secrets story; New York Post]
From 2010 through 2014, Strouss and Bradley along with founding partner Michael Thornton and his wife donated nearly $1.6 million to Democratic party fundraising committees and a parade of politicians from Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada to Hawaii gubernatorial candidate David Ige to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Over the same span, the lawyers received $1.4 million listed as “bonuses” in Thornton Law Firm records; more than 280 of the contributions precisely matched bonuses that were paid within 10 days.
That payback system, which involved other partners as well, helped make Thornton the 11th-ranked law firm nationally for political contributions in 2014, according to data analyzed by the Center, even though the firm is not among the 100 biggest in Massachusetts, much less the U.S.
Capitol Hill recipients of Thornton money include many figures who have played a role in blocking asbestos litigation reform, including Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).
Election roundup
- Does money rule politics? As of late October Trump campaign had been badly outspent by Clinton, with Super PAC money favoring her by more than 3-1 [Bloomberg]
- Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), on whether private lawsuits can proceed against a President while in office, “potentially quite important again.” [Orin Kerr]
- Related, from Ken White at Popehat a few days back: stop painting the civil suits against Donald Trump as worse than they are;
- “Democrats, please: Do not respond by doubling down on identity politics. That is poison in a multi-ethnic democracy.” [Jonathan Haidt]
- Maricopa County, Ariz. sheriff Joe Arpaio, a frequent target in this space, loses re-election bid [NPR]
- Successful ballot measure will make Maine first state to adopt “ranked-choice” preferential voting [Ian Farrow, Tyler Cowen]
- More: What Donald Trump’s election will mean for the Supreme Court [Josh Blackman, Ilya Shapiro]
Wisconsin “John Doe” sputters toward close
“On the third anniversary of predawn armed raids on Wisconsin homes in the name of politics, the U.S. Supreme Court has driven the final nail in the coffin of Wisconsin’s politically driven John Doe investigation. On [Oct. 3], the high court rejected a petition by Democratic prosecutors looking to overturn the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling last year declaring the campaign finance investigation unconstitutional.” But is it truly the final nail? M.D. Kittle reports as part of Wisconsin Watchdog’s series, “Wisconsin’s Secret War.”
Rauch: Bring back the political Establishment
When roving bandits appear on the scene, you begin to miss the old stationary bandits: Jonathan Rauch wants to bring back the political Establishment of days past, by revisiting primary and campaign-finance laws that were meant to curb the role of party regulars. [The Atlantic]
Bonus, Terry Teachout: “In a totally polarized political environment, persuasion is no longer possible: we believe what we believe, and nothing matters but class and power. We are well on the way … the gap that separates the two Americas has grown so deep and wide that I find it increasingly difficult to imagine their caring to function as a single nation for very much longer. …The main obstacle that stands in the way of the soft disunion of America is that Red and Blue America are not geographically disjunct, as were the North and South in the Civil War.”
Free speech roundup
- Why Josh Blackman signed Wednesday’s New York Times ad protesting the AGs’ investigation and subpoenas on climate advocacy;
- Proposed revision of ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct barring discrimination by lawyers could have major anti-speech implications [Eugene Volokh]
- “Game Studio’s Plan To Deal With Critic Of Games: Sue Him To Hell” [Timothy Geigner, TechDirt]
- The Citizens United case was correctly decided, says Michael Kinsley. And he’s right. [Vanity Fair]
- Fifth Circuit ruling prescribes attorney fee award after defeat of frivolous trademark litigation under Lanham Act [Popehat]
- So what’s a good way to support teaching evolution without climbing in bed with folks who put free speech in scare quotes? [National Center for Science Education on Twitter: “Tobacco Science, Climate Denial, and ‘Free Speech'”]
Michael Kinsley on Citizens United
The Citizens United case was correctly decided, says Michael Kinsley. And he is right. [Vanity Fair]