Month: January 2018

Trump Officials Are Exploring Mass Arrests of US Mayors

Trump administration officials are openly floating the idea of mass arrests of mayors of sanctuary cities. Two different high-ranking officials discussed this on national television in January alone. On January 16, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen told the Senate Judiciary Committee that, at her department’s request, federal prosecutors are “reviewing what avenues might be available” to arrest
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Free Speech For People Joins Watchdog Groups’ Letter to House Speaker Ryan About Rep. Nunes

Free Speech For People joined Democracy 21 and fourteen other watchdog groups and individuals in a letter to House Speaker Ryan today, challenging the continued involvement of Rep. Devin Nunes in the House’s Russia investigations. The letter called on Speaker Ryan “to act promptly to remove Chairman Nunes from any further participation in any aspect of the Russia
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What the Ninth Circuit’s Prostitution Decision Can Teach Us About Money in Politics

A federal court of appeals just rejected a case challenging prostitution laws as unconstitutional. A Newsweek piece published this Saturday—as it happens, the anniversary of oral argument in the case that created super PACs—explained how this decision, perhaps unexpectedly, shows what’s wrong with the way the Supreme Court thinks about money in politics. The analysis draws on scholarship by
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SpeechNow v. FEC – The Case that Created Super PACs, and Our Challenge

January 27 marks the eighth anniversary of oral argument in the case that created super PACs. Contrary to popular belief, super PACs were not created by the Supreme Court in Citizens United, but rather by a subsequent lower court decision called SpeechNow v. FEC, argued on January 27, 2010 (just six days after the Citizens United decision). As we
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How Big Donors Drove Tax Reform

There was big news this week on the money in politics front. Recent Federal Election Commission filings show that less than two weeks after the House passed the tax bill, Charles and Elizabeth Koch each donated $247,700 to Paul Ryan’s super PAC, Team Ryan. The same day, they lavished another $406,800 on the National Republican Congressional Committee. Major donors Marlene
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Celebrating the life of Doris ‘Granny D’ Haddock

Today is the birthday of Doris Haddock, otherwise known as Granny D, who, at the age of 89, walked across the country to press for an overhaul of our nation’s campaign finance system. When she set out from California, she did not have any grand plan as to how she would do this. She just
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Free Speech For People Seeking Communications Intern

Come join the campaign to reclaim democracy for the people. Free Speech For People, a national nonpartisan nonprofit organization, was founded in 2010 after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision. We’re working to renew our democracy and reclaim our Constitution for We the People, not big money and corporate interests, and to challenge
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On the anniversary of the Presidential Inauguration, we continue the campaign for an impeachment investigation of President Trump

On this day last year, Free Speech For People, with RootsAction, launched the campaign, Impeach Donald Trump Now, calling for an impeachment investigation to be launched by Congress into the violations of the Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution by Donald Trump. Since the launch of the campaign, we have expanded the
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Williams-Yulee and the Courts, Three Years Later

President Trump’s 2017 inauguration isn’t the only event with an anniversary coming on January 20. On January 20, 2015, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar, an important case on judicial fundraising and preserving public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary. And unlike Citizens United, which will have its
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