First Amendment and Campaigns: More Campaign Speech Benefits Voters

January 1, 2018  •  By IFS Staff  •    •  

At the heart of the First Amendment is the assumption that Americans are best served by a full and free discussion of whom to elect. The American system of government sits atop the bedrock of the First Amendment. From the pamphleteering of the founding era to the Facebook ads of today, political campaigns have been premised upon free and open…

Florida Elections Commission learns expensive free speech lesson

June 21, 2023   •  By Tiffany Donnelly   •  ,

If you can dish it out, you’ve got to be able to take it. That’s a lesson the Florida Elections Commission (FEC) is learning ...

Do States with Fewer Campaign Finance Regulations Have More Corruption?

May 24, 2023   •  By Alec Greven   •  , , ,

New research finds that states ranking highly for free political expression are not highly ranked states for corruption. In fact, states that have the ...

Don’t Let Arizona Politicians Sign Away your Rights

February 22, 2023   •  By Alec Greven   •  , , ,

Here’s yet another sign that your First Amendment rights are under attack by politicians – a ban on political signs.

LTE: Declaring party in school-board races is welcomed

January 31, 2023   •  By Tiffany Donnelly   •  ,

I understand Scott Maxwell’s concerns about partisanship in local elections ( “Judge allows more partisanship in Florida elections. Things are about to get uglier.” ...

Judge strikes down Florida censorship of nonpartisan candidates

January 19, 2023   •  By Tiffany Donnelly   •  ,

When Escambia County School Board candidate Kells Hetherington chose to describe himself as a “lifelong Republican” in his candidate statement on a county website ...

Free Speech Index

The Institute for Free Speech is pleased to present the Free Speech Index: Grading the 50 States on the Freedom To Speak About Government. ...

The Mirage of Corruption: An Analysis of the Supreme Court’s “Appearance of Corruption” Standard

August 8, 2022   •  By Alec Greven   •  , , ,

The Supreme Court’s landmark Buckley v. Valeo decision laid the foundation for modern campaign finance law in the United States. The decision rests on ...

Important First Amendment Supreme Court Decision Cruises Under the Radar

July 21, 2022   •  By Barnaby Zall   •  , , ,

FEC v. Cruz is a forceful restatement of the Court’s intention to protect political speech and clarifies that governments must justify restrictions with specific ...

Money’s Not Enough: The Stories Behind 2020 U.S. House Primary Money-Upsets

May 16, 2022   •  By Nathan Maxwell   •  ,

PDF available here Introduction As the 2022 midterm elections approach, we’ll no doubt see media pundits aiming to predict who will win based on ...

Connecticut State Agency Defends Fines for Mentioning the Governor. IFS Defends the First Amendment.

December 28, 2021   •  By Alex Baiocco   •  , ,

Imagine if federal law prevented 2020 congressional candidates from speaking to voters about their views on the Trump administration’s agenda or barred those seeking ...

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