The Arizona Free Enterprise Club decision, seven years later Posted on June 27, 2018 (June 28, 2018) Democracy Amendments June 27 marks the seventh anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, which struck down key portions of Arizona’s public campaign financing law as supposedly violating the First Amendment. This blog post for the decision’s anniversary was drafted by Ryan Gorman, a student at Harvard Law SchoolRead More
New amicus brief argues that Seattle’s democracy voucher program promotes political equality and democratic self-government Posted on May 31, 2018 (June 1, 2018) On Thursday, Free Speech For People and Demos filed an amicus brief in the Washington state court of appeals in the case of Elster v. City of Seattle. Our brief helps defend the city against a constitutional challenge to Seattle’s “democracy voucher” program, a nationally-recognized public campaign financing system enacted by voter initiative in 2015 and firstRead More
New Report on Impact of Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program on Candidates’ Ability to Rely on Constituents for Fundraising Posted on May 1, 2018 (May 1, 2018) Today, Free Speech For People released a new issue report on The Impact of Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program on Candidates’ Ability to Rely on Constituents for Fundraising. In 2015, Seattle voters enacted a novel democracy voucher program for public campaign financing. The objective of this analysis was to examine whether the democracy voucher program, first used in theRead More
Childcare, Women Candidates, and Political Equality Posted on April 13, 2018 (April 13, 2018) Today we filed a comment to the Federal Election Commission in support of a request for an advisory opinion by Liuba Grechen Shirley, a congressional candidate who needs childcare in order to be able to campaign for office. Our comment, which we submitted together with Demos and Professor Zephyr Teachout, supports Ms. Shirley’s request toRead More
Harper v. Virginia and the Wealth Primary as a New Poll Tax Posted on March 24, 2018 (September 18, 2018) Democracy Amendments Today is the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, which struck down poll taxes in state elections as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Virginia’s poll taxes, enacted in 1902, had preserved Virginia’s place as an elite white man’s commonwealth. But to this day,Read More
The Hill: Trump’s ‘treason’ talk is unprecedented, un-American Posted on February 14, 2018 Democracy Amendments As a piece in The Hill today noted, President Trump recently suggested congressional Democrats were guilty of “treason” for failing to applaud his State of the Union speech. As he put it, “Can we call that treason? Why not?” Here’s why not: The Constitution specifically defines treason, and failing to applaud the president isn’t treason—not by a longRead More
What the Ninth Circuit’s Prostitution Decision Can Teach Us About Money in Politics Posted on January 29, 2018 (October 3, 2018) Democracy Amendments 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 byRead More
Williams-Yulee and the Courts, Three Years Later Posted on January 17, 2018 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 itsRead More
Post-Election: How We Can Win Campaign Finance Reform Cases Before the Supreme Court Posted on November 9, 2016 (December 13, 2016) Read our post-election summary on how we can win campaign finance reform cases before the Supreme Court.Read More
Professor Timothy Kuhner on “The New Tyranny: A Preface to the 2016 Elections in the United States” Posted on June 7, 2016 (October 2, 2018) Timothy Kuhner, an associate professor of law at Georgia State University, is featured in The World Financial Review, with a piece titled “The New Tyranny: A Preface to the 2016 Elections in the United States.”Read More