Government Watchdogs Sue FEC for Failure to Investigate Coordination between the Russian Government and President Trump’s 2016 Campaign Posted on December 8, 2021 (December 8, 2021) 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 theRead More
FSFP Legal Fellow Ben Horton Discusses Why The January 6th Insurrection Further Highlights The Dangers of Corporate Political Spending. Posted on December 6, 2021 (May 23, 2022) 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 understandRead More
VIDEO: The Ongoing Fight To Abolish Super PACs and Prohibit Foreign-Influenced Corporate Spending in State Elections. Posted on September 23, 2021 (October 1, 2021) 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 sameRead More
New York State Senate Cracks Down on Multinational Corporations Interfering in State Elections, Passes Democracy Preservation Act Posted on June 3, 2021 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 moneyRead More
Commissioner Ellen Weintraub of the U.S. Federal Election Commission Urges New York State Legislature To Support The Democracy Preservation Act. Posted on June 2, 2021 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.Read More
New Free Speech For People Video Explains How Foreign-Influenced Corporations Interfere in U.S. Elections. Posted on June 1, 2021 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 foreignRead More
WATCH: New York Democracy Preservation Act Virtual Town Hall – May 13, 2021 Posted on May 14, 2021 (May 14, 2021) 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 NewRead More
Free Speech For People Denounces Florida Legislature’s Power Grab Against Cities and Counties Posted on May 7, 2021 Challenging Foreign Influence 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 limitsRead More
Federal Election Commission Deadlocks 3-3 on Free Speech For People’s Complaint Challenging Citgo’s Illegal Contribution to Trump Inaugural Committee Posted on May 3, 2021 (May 3, 2021) Challenging Foreign Influence 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 committeesRead More
The Democracy Preservation Act: FSFP Mounting a Challenge Against Foreign Corporate Influence in New York Elections Posted on May 3, 2021 Challenging Foreign Influence 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, NewRead More