Free Speech For People is thrilled to announce that Kristin Barrali has joined our team in the new role of Director of Advancement. Ms. Barrali brings over 20 years of nonprofit fundraising experience and social justice advocacy to this role. As Director of Advancement, she will lead the expansion of the development, marketing, and fundraising
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Free Speech For People is pleased to announce our summer 2021 Legal Advocacy Program interns! We appreciate the talent, time, and commitment to defending our democracy that these law students bring to the Free Speech For People team. Learn more about our new Legal Advocacy Program interns below! Analiese Batchelor is a rising second-year student
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Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United, foreign-influenced corporations have spent millions to sway elections in New York. Take Airbnb, for example: the home-sharing platform, partly owned by a Russian oligarch’s venture fund, funneled $11M into a super PAC to defeat legislators seeking to impose restrictions on the company in 2016. But New
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Cities and counties in Florida have long been empowered through principles of home rule to enact their own local campaign finance laws. But the Florida governor recently signed a law, aimed directly at our success in St. Petersburg–where we helped develop and pass a groundbreaking ordinance that bans political spending by foreign-influenced corporations, and limits
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The Federal Election Commission divided 3-3 on Free Speech For People’s 2017 complaint against the oil company Citgo, its Venezuelan state-owned parent company, and President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee. The FEC’s general counsel agreed with Free Speech For People that the companies and the inaugural committee violated a federal ban on donations to inaugural committees
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Free Speech For People has been at the forefront in the fight to end foreign-influenced corporate campaign spending, researching, drafting, and advocating for legislation on all levels of government. We helped to successfully pass laws in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2017, and in Seattle, Washington in 2020. Seven states (Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New
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In a public hearing before the State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee of the Colorado General Assembly, Free Speech For People’s Senior Advisor on Election Security, submitted testimony in opposition to SB 21-188, a bill which would offer insecure, unauditable, online voting to voters with disabilities. “Proponents of this bill suggest, erroneously, that secure
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FSFP Legal Counsel Courtney Hostetler recently appeared on The Damage Report to discuss the Equal Rights Amendment, the Constitutional amendment banning sex and gender discrimination. During the discussion with host John Iadarola, Hostetler discussed the Trump-era Department of Justice (DOJ) opinion that has, to date, blocked the publishing of the Amendment as the 28th Amendment
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Free Speech For People is honored to receive a grant award from Craig Newmark Philanthropies to support our work to get big money out of politics, protect our elections, and defend our democracy! Craig Newmark Philanthropies works to protect the values that America aspires to: fairness, opportunity, and respect. We are grateful to receive this
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Ron Fein, the Legal Director of Free Speech For People, submitted testimony in support of AB 20, the Corporate-Free Elections Act in California. “I am the Legal Director of Free Speech For People, a national non-partisan nonprofit organization, that works to renew our democracy and to limit the influence of money in our elections. I
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