Category: Challenging Foreign Influence

FSFP Legal Director Ron Fein Testifies Before Hawaii State Legislature and Urges Lawmakers to Lower Thresholds For Defining Foreign-Influenced Corporations.
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Challenging Foreign Influence

FSFP Legal Director Ron Fein recently appeared before the Hawaii State Legislature to provide testimony on why the deliberative body must consider expanding the definition of a foreign-influenced corporation as it looks to safeguard state elections. The following is an excerpt from his testimony: For a large multinational corporation, an investor that owns 1% of
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New Bill Seeks to Ban Multinational Corporations From Spending Money in California Elections
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Challenging Foreign Influence

Introduced by Assemblymember Alex Lee, the bill would prohibit spending by foreign-influenced corporations to candidates, parties, or committees (including super PACs), closing a loophole created by the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC. SACRAMENTO, CA (February 7, 2022) – California Assemblymember Alex Lee introduced today AB 1819 to bar multinational or foreign-influenced
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REP. JAMIE RASKIN INTRODUCES BILL TO BAN MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS FROM SPENDING MONEY IN U.S. ELECTIONS
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Challenging Foreign Influence

The bill would prohibit spending by foreign-influenced corporations to candidates, parties, or committees (including super PACs), closing a loophole created by the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC. WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 14, 2021) – Congressman Jamie Raskin today introduced a bill (HR 6283) to bar multinational corporations like Amazon, Meta (formerly Facebook),
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Government Watchdogs Sue FEC for Failure to Investigate Coordination between the Russian Government and President Trump’s 2016 Campaign
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Challenging Foreign Influence

The Federal Election Commission’s failure to act on a prior complaint from December 2016 effectively shields the Russian government and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign from accountability for violating federal election laws.  WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 8, 2021) – Nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations Free Speech For People and Campaign for Accountability today filed a federal lawsuit against the
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FSFP Legal Fellow Ben Horton Discusses Why The January 6th Insurrection Further Highlights The Dangers of Corporate Political Spending.
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Challenging Foreign Influence

Truthout recently published an oped by Free Speech For People Legal Fellow Ben Horton on why the January 6 insurrection further highlights the danger that corporate political spending poses to our democracy. The following is an excerpt from the new piece: To save our democracy, we can’t rely on corporations — we need to understand
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VIDEO: The Ongoing Fight To Abolish Super PACs and Prohibit Foreign-Influenced Corporate Spending in State Elections.
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Challenging Foreign Influence

In March 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in SpeechNow.org v. FEC opened the door to super PACs by holding that the federal law limiting contributions to political committees to $5,000 per person each year could not be applied to a political committee that promised to make only “independent expenditures.” At the same
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New York State Senate Cracks Down on Multinational Corporations Interfering in State Elections, Passes Democracy Preservation Act
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Challenging Foreign Influence

If passed in the Assembly and signed into law, New York would be the first state to ban multinational corporate money in elections. ALBANY, NY (June 3, 2021) – The New York State Senate today passed, with bipartisan support, the Democracy Preservation Act (S1126), a bill designed to end the influence of foreign corporate money
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Commissioner Ellen Weintraub of the U.S. Federal Election Commission Urges New York State Legislature To Support The Democracy Preservation Act.
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Challenging Foreign Influence

FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub sent a letter to members of the New York State Legislature, urging them to support the Democracy Preservation Act and protect New York’s state and local elections from foreign influence. “Elections at all levels in the United States have been under sustained direct attack from our foreign adversaries,” Commissioner Weintraub writes.
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New Free Speech For People Video Explains How Foreign-Influenced Corporations Interfere in U.S. Elections.
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Challenging Foreign Influence

Checkout our latest video explaining how to stop multinational corporations such as Uber and Amazon from spending millions of dollars trying to influence U.S. elections. We The People are fighting back. As the video explains: Seventy-three percent of Americans, including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, support limiting political spending by companies with any foreign
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WATCH: New York Democracy Preservation Act Virtual Town Hall – May 13, 2021
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Challenging Foreign Influence

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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