May 12, 2025

In the News

WLBT3: Judge declares motion to dismiss Garth Brooks’ Mississippi lawsuit ‘moot’

By Anthony Warren

.....Anti-SLAPP statutes are designed to prevent individuals from filing suits to “strategically suppress or punish speech he or she dislikes,” the Institute for Free Speech states. According to the Institute, in 2023, Mississippi had no anti-SLAPP laws.

New from the Institute for Free Speech

From Backlog to Breakthrough: Allen Dickerson’s Legacy at the FEC

By David Keating and Bradley A. Smith

.....April 30 was former Chairman and Commissioner Allen Dickerson’s last day at the FEC. Serving as a commissioner on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is truly a thankless job. The pay is low—Allen took a pay cut from his position as Legal Director here at the Institute for Free Speech.—and public criticism is often high.

Now that he has completed his term of office, the nation owes Allen a hearty thank you for his service. It’s not the first time Allen selflessly served our country. He has served as an officer and, now, a Major in the U.S. Army Reserve within the Judge Advocate General’s Corps for many years...

After publicly announcing his resignation at the April 30 FEC meeting, colleagues on the Commission and the staff shed tears. It was moving to watch, and it is a testament to both his character and effectiveness…

Working with and knowing Allen for as long as we have, we knew he would do a great job, and he did. He played a significant role in reinvigorating the agency, working with his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. He is a gentleman and a lawyer’s lawyer.

His character and similar qualities in most of his colleagues led to an era where the FEC performed as envisioned when Congress established the agency decades ago—effective, bipartisan work to enforce the law fairly and provide guidance to speakers.

As Allen reflected in his statement upon conclusion of his term, the Commission looked very different when he joined four years ago:

Supreme Court

Election Law Blog: Justice Souter, Democracy Champion, Has Passed Away

By Rick Hasen

.....Justice Souter also wrote key opinions upholding various campaign finance laws (this was in the period when there was a 5-4 majority agreeing to uphold reasonable campaign finance regulation). Although Justice Souter couched these in the language of corruption, I argued in a law review article that he was a closet egalitarian. That suspicion was borne out years later when we saw some of the internal memos of the Justices, when Justice Souter warned of an emerging plutocracy.

From my Slate piece on those memos:

The Courts

Courthouse News: Colorado Springs duo still on hook in hate crime hoax

By Amanda Pampuro 

.....A federal judge on Friday declined to dismiss federal charges filed against two people who staged a burning cross in 2023 as a hoax to generate voter outrage and support for a Black candidate running for mayor of Colorado Springs.

“A reasonable jury could find that the defendants’ communication fits into the definition of a true threat,” wrote U.S. Judge Regina Rodriguez in a 13-page order.

The States

Tuscon.com: Arizona high court to hear ongoing push to keep campaign spending anonymous

By Howard Fischer

.....In a brief order, the justices said they will consider a claim by the Center for Arizona Policy and the Arizona Free Enterprise Club that disclosure laws approved by voters in 2022 run afoul of the free speech clause of the state constitution. Attorneys for the Goldwater Institute, representing both groups, contend that provision provides even broader individual protections than the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

They argue that language precludes the state from forcing the disclosure of the names of those who give money to those groups, money they then can use in turn to campaign for or against not just candidates but also ballot measures…

Approved by voters in 2022 by a nearly 3-1 margin, the Proposition 211 initiative says that any organization that spends more than $50,000 on a statewide race — half that for other contests — has to publicly disclose anyone who has given at least $5,000.

It says organizations have to trace the money back to the original source.

Maryland Matters: Appeals court rules identity of political donors can be hidden from public view

.....A three-judge panel of the Appellate Court of Maryland has ruled that individual donations to a political fund are private financial information and must be protected from public identification.

The May 2 opinion, by Judge Kathryn Grill Graeff, said that public interest in government transparency and uncovering corruption do not outweigh plain language of the Maryland Public Information Act, which prohibits the disclosure of an individual’s financial activity, no matter how small.

The ruling came in response to separate lawsuits by the Baltimore Sun and the Baltimore Brew, which had filed Maryland Public Information Act requests with the city for records relating to a legal defense fund set up in 2021 by Council President Nick Mosby for himself and his then-wife, Marilyn, who was Baltimore City State’s Attorney at the time.

National Review: GOP Attorneys General Awarding Lucrative Contracts to Law Firms That Give Millions to Democrats

By James Lynch

.....Republican attorneys general in solid red states are awarding contracts for litigation to prominent law firms that donate almost exclusively to Democrats...

Conservative activist O. H. Skinner, executive director of Alliance for Defending Consumers, believes the GOP AGs are perpetuating an insidious cycle in which red state taxpayer dollars help enrich law firms which then turn around and redirect those funds to Democrats.

“That just begs the question of how unsophisticated or willingly blind officials are if they are rationalizing multi-million dollar payouts to law firms that give 99 percent of their donations to Democrats on the federal level,” Skinner said.

Skinner’s organization has produced reports calling out the “Shady Eight” law firms for making substantial political contributions to Democratic politicians who support regulatory policies that end up creating more litigation for those firms to profit off. Several firms on Skinner’s list have worked with the offices of red state AGs.

“We look at the federal donations when we’re analyzing these law firms because we think that that is a clear indication of the firm’s actual belief system,” Skinner added. “They don’t get hired by the federal government.”

Albany Times Union: Democrats made public money for campaigns even more generous than expected

By Emilie Munson

.....A state budget bill passed by the New York Legislature Wednesday included unforeseen changes to the public campaign finance system that could help candidates collect more taxpayer money for their campaigns while also leaning on bigger donors.

The numerous changes were hammered out in private with no public input. The day after the bill passed there was still confusion about what the changes will mean. Some also are arguing the new rules undermine the program that was intended to reduce the influence of big donors and help grassroots candidates wage viable campaigns…

On Friday, the good-government group Reinvent Albany issued a statement slamming lawmakers for changing the rules of a system that was intended to give voters more choices and lessen the influence in elections of special interests and “big money.”

The group said the changes added to the budget in secret drastically increase the size of contributions eligible for public matching funds “and boosts the public match in ways that turn the hard-won public campaign matching system into an incumbency protection program.”