ACLU Opposes DISCLOSE Act

Pertinacious Tom · Jul 28, 2021

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU-NJ) announced today that a state superior court has dismissed obscenity charges against Patricia Dilascio, a resident of Roselle Park, New Jersey, at the request of the town. As Reason reported last week, a Roselle Park municipal court judge had ordered Dilascio to take down three flags from her property that said "fuck Biden," finding that they violated the town's obscenity ordinance. She faced fines of $250 a day for not complying.

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Dilascio, represented by the ACLU of New Jersey, appealed the order to take down her anti-Biden flags, and the politically charged small-town kerfuffle in Roselle Park ended up being covered in The New York Times. The reaction was apparently enough that the town filed an application with a state superior court to voluntarily dismiss the charges, which the court granted.

"The continued attention garnered by the inappropriate display and the escalating costs to the taxpayers of continuing to litigate the matter causes far greater harm to the Borough, as a whole, than good," the town said in a statement.

The ACLU of New Jersey applauded the town's decision to drop the fight.

"The First Amendment exists specifically to make sure people can express strong opinions on political issues—or any other matter—without fear of punishment by the government," ACLU-NJ executive director Amol Sinha said in a press release. "Today's decision confirms that our position was correct: Roselle Park had no grounds to issue fines for a political sign and the town's use of its obscenity ordinance infringed upon fundamental rights protected by the First Amendment. It was an uncomplicated case."

That's more gracious than I might have been. It was a stupid case, completely devoid of any merit. Glad the ACLU was able to quickly dispense with it.

Pertinacious Tom · Mar 5, 2022

Wisconsin Family Action v. Federal Election Commission

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has massively expanded donor disclosure requirements for nonprofit groups that advocate the election or defeat of federal candidates. In December, a Wisconsin nonprofit filed a federal lawsuit challenging those requirements and the Commission’s interpretation of federal law as unconstitutional. Only donors who specifically intend to fund campaign expenditures can be constitutionally required to be reported to the FEC, the lawsuit explains.

Wisconsin Family Action (WFA) brought the case to secure its right to speak independently to the public about federal candidates in future elections. It has refrained from doing so out of concern that public reporting of the group’s general donors would suppress contributions and expose its members to harassment, threats, and other acts of retaliation.

A 2018 court ruling struck down a longstanding FEC regulation stipulating that only contributors who supported a particular ad endorsing or opposing a federal candidate must be publicly exposed. Three years later, the FEC has still not replaced that regulation. The little guidance the Commission has provided suggests that nonprofits may now be forced to report general donations given for no political purpose.

This sweeping interpretation of the law could result in the public exposure of the names and addresses of every person who gives as little as $200 in a calendar year to any nonprofit group that spends just $250 on communications that advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. The threat of such widespread exposure of nonprofit donors has had a severe chilling effect on political speech.

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WFA is a Christian group that seems focused on marriage (presumably the non-gay kind), prohibiting abortion, and the stupid war on weed. So I'm not with them on their major issues, but donor privacy affects groups that are ok with gays, abortions, and weed too.

I also just don't want to be bothered. I didn't get out of the way in time at a meeting and am now the VP of a local sailing nonprofit. I don't think we've ever spent any money trying to get a candidate elected or defeated but it could happen. By which I mean, $249.99 of it could happen, for all the good that can do. Any more and someone is going to ask at a meeting who has to compile this reporting info and I probably won't get out of the way in time.

Pertinacious Tom · Mar 27, 2022

When TeamR Attacks 'Dark Money,' They're Really Attacking Free Speech

By adopting Democrats' strategy of attacking so-called dark money groups at this week's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, Republican senators are fueling efforts to undermine core First Amendment protections.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R–Iowa), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, denounced the "role of far-left dark money groups like Demand Justice" in his opening remarks. And he wasn't the only one to do so. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) made vague references to "the most liberal people under the umbrella of Arabella." Prior to the hearing, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) criticized the "dark money" being spent to "raise [Jackson's] profile."

Predictably, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D–R.I.) responded to Republicans' dark money fear mongering by suggesting that they support his legislation to "get rid of it." No one should take the bait.

Whitehouse is a sponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, a bill that Republicans in Congress, including all those quoted above, have thankfully opposed because it would force advocacy groups to publicly expose the names and addresses of their supporters. In today's polarized political environment, that would be a recipe for disaster. This legislation, which is regularly included in Democratic voting reform proposals, is a direct attack on the First Amendment right to associate privately.

The American Civil Liberties Union also recognizes the threat, with senior staff writing that these provisions "could directly interfere with the ability of many to engage in political speech about causes that they care about and that impact their lives by imposing new and onerous disclosure requirements on nonprofits committed to advancing those causes."

Armed with donor lists, powerful politicians in Congress could shift the target of their name-and-shame attacks from groups like Demand Justice and the Judicial Crisis Network to the individual Americans who support them. The result would be a loss of donations to groups that speak out, a chilling of political speech, and a shrinking of civil society.

Whitehouse's proposed "solution" would dramatically expand the federal government's power over political speech by redefining many communications about legislation and judicial nominations as "campaign-related" speech. True campaign speech—which calls for the election or defeat of candidates—is already heavily regulated.

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I'm still an ACLU guy on this one too...

Ishmael · Mar 27, 2022

Wow.

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