Category Archives: campaigns

“PACs poised to supercharge California Senate campaign”

February 28, 2023, 7:00 amcampaign finance, campaignsRick Hasen

Politico: Democrats are rushing in to replace California Sen. Dianne Feinstein — and so are the Super PACs. The once-in-a-generation contest for a California Senate seat could unleash a tsunami of outside spending as independent expenditure committees with unlimited fundraising powers work… Continue reading

Eighth Circuit refuses to bar Minnesota Attorney General’s subpoenas against WinRed

February 7, 2023, 8:42 amcampaign finance, campaignsDerek Muller

An opinion in WinRed Inc. v. Ellison written by Judge Benton, joined by Chief Judge Smith (with some excerpts, below, lightly edited). (Judge Shepherd, “writing separately,” argues the case is not ripe for review and the court lacks jurisdiction.)

Federal District Court in Mackey Case Rejects First Amendment Defense to Criminal Prosecution for Spreading Twitter Memes Falsely Telling Hillary Clinton Supporters They Could Vote by Hashtag/Text

January 23, 2023, 4:56 pmcampaigns, cheap speechRick Hasen

You can find the opinion here (h/t Eugene Volokh). I write about this case in Cheap Speech. I think, and the district court agrees, that it does not violate the First Amendment to make it a crime to lie about… Continue reading

“Billions at stake as online fundraising practices turn off voters”

January 17, 2023, 6:38 amcampaign finance, campaignsRick Hasen

Politico: That advice reflects a recognition among digital campaign staffers that text and email programs have gone from innovative to out of hand, to the point that it’s harming the campaign ecosystem. The rate of return on individual appeals is… Continue reading

“A 2 million-person, campaign-wide field experiment shows how digital advertising affects voter turnout”

January 13, 2023, 8:14 amcampaignsRick Hasen

New in Nature Human Behavior from Minali Aggarwal et al.: We present the results of a large, US$8.9 million campaign-wide field experiment, conducted among 2 million moderate- and low-information persuadable voters in five battleground states during the 2020 US presidential… Continue reading

“Twitter reverses longstanding ban on political advertising”

January 3, 2023, 4:49 pmcampaigns, cheap speechRick Hasen

WaPo: Twitter said it was relaxing its ban on political and issue-based advertising on Tuesday, a reversal of the company’s long-standing approach to paid political speech. The policy change, which comes at a moment when major advertisers are defecting… Continue reading

“Conceptual Replication of Four Key Findings about Factual Corrections and Misinformation During the 2020 U.S. Election: Evidence from Panel Survey Experiments”

December 11, 2022, 1:20 pmcampaigns, cheap speechDerek Muller

Alexander Coppock, Kimberly Gross, Ethan Porter, Emily Thorson, and Thomas J. Wood, Conceptual Replication of Four Key Findings about Factual Corrections and Misinformation During the 2020 U.S. Election: Evidence from Panel Survey Experiments (British Journal of Political Science): In the… Continue reading

“Fourth Circuit urged to strike down North Carolina election libel law”

December 6, 2022, 2:46 pmcampaignsDerek Muller

Courthouse News Service: A Fourth Circuit panel heard arguments Tuesday over whether the campaign committee for North Carolina’s Democratic attorney general should face criminal charges under a state law banning the spread of false information to damage a candidate’s… Continue reading

Young and Independent Voters Want Campaigns to Leave Them Alone

November 17, 2022, 4:39 amcampaigns, cheap speechNew SurveyTabatha Abu El-Haj

A new survey by Civics finds that young and independent voters do not appreciate unsolicited emails and text messages from multiple campaigns and they would rather they stopped. The survey analysts conclude: “Democrats are at risk of burning out their… Continue reading

“Political spam is out of control. Now Gmail is about to make it worse.”

October 6, 2022, 10:29 amcampaigns, UncategorizedFranita Tolson

Read the article, courtesy of The Washington Post.

“Social media firms are prepping for the midterms. Experts say it may not be enough”

September 13, 2022, 10:07 amcampaigns, cheap speechRick Hasen

NPR: With two months to go until the midterms, tech companies are getting ready: rolling out fact checks, labeling misleading claims and setting up voting guides.The election playbooks being used by Facebook, Twitter, Google-owned YouTube and TikTok are… Continue reading

“How a Record Cash Haul Vanished for Senate Republicans”

September 4, 2022, 7:50 amcampaign finance, campaignsRick Hasen

NYT: The committee had squeezed donors with hyperaggressive new tactics. And all the money coming in obscured just how much the committee was spending advertising for donors. Then inflation sapped online giving for Republicans nationwide. And the money that… Continue reading

“Regulation of Political Advertising (2022 Edition)”

August 26, 2022, 7:23 amcampaignsRick Hasen

This from Eric Goldman and Rebecca Tushnet looks very useful for those of us who teach campaign law: “This is Chapter 21 of our Advertising and Marketing Law casebook, 6th edition (2022), a chapter we are publishing only online.… Continue reading

“Inside The Right’s Historic Billion-Dollar Dark Money Transfer”

August 22, 2022, 1:55 pmcampaign finance, campaignsRick Hasen

The Lever/ProPublica: An elderly, ultra-secretive Chicago businessman has given the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history — worth $1.6 billion — and the recipient is one of the prime architects of conservatives’ efforts to… Continue reading