When the Supreme Court decided Citizens United v. FEC in 2010, many critics argued it would have a devastating impact on democracy. This analysis ...

This study suggests that out-of-state campaign donations are not as indicative of potential election outcomes as in-state dollars may be. Efforts to limit out-of-state ...

Ten years after the Citizens United decision, this report asks if opponents' claims that increased speech through independent expenditures would lead to increased corruption ...

The Institute for Free Speech (“IFS”) has reviewed the laws in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, New York City, and Seattle regulating ...

Foreword by Chairman Bradley A. Smith and President David Keating On behalf of the Institute for Free Speech, we are pleased to present Part ...

The Institute's tenth issue analysis examines the claim by proponents of taxpayer-funded political campaigns that such systems improve the political process by exposing incumbent ...

This Issue Brief tells the alarming story of radical activists and government leaders pushing for new restrictions on political speech in the wake of ...

For many, a meeting of the American Bar Association’s Tax Section’s Exempt Organizations would not be expected to elicit much excitement. A typical audience for ...

Senator Tom Udall’s (NM) S.J. Res. 19 would revoke nearly four decades of campaign finance jurisprudence from the Supreme Court and greatly reduce the quantity ...

Campaign finance disclosure laws generally require candidates, political parties, and citizen groups that primarily work to elect or defeat candidates, to register with the government ...

This primer answers common questions about the Supreme Court's decision in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, its immediate impact on nonprofits, and possible ...

Targeting tools for online ads have become cheap, easy to use, and effective. This has yielded tremendous benefits for political speech and association. Some ...

Targeted online ads are an essential tool for Americans seeking to join forces with fellow citizens to make their voices heard. Now, some propose ...

A new and creative way to restrict speech has arrived in the form of industry-based contribution bans. These bans typically target an industry and ...

Although the 2020 presidential nominating conventions have concluded, the national parties will be forced to navigate both expected, inflated costs and unexpected costs in ...

Policymakers should consider the following key principles for crafting requirements that promote accurate and effective disclaimers while minimizing costs to speech, privacy, and associational ...

On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court struck down a federal law in Citizens United that prohibited corporations and labor unions from independently voicing ...

PDF available here By Eric Wang, Senior Fellow[1] One way to better understand how H.R. 1 would affect nonprofit civic and advocacy groups is ...

The First Amendment is facing a new threat in state legislatures. A spate of bills that would regulate political and issue advertising on the ...

The Internet and social media outreach are more important than ever to campaigns. As a result, legislators face a temptation to regulate this growing ...

Abstract: The role of corporations in the U.S. political process has received increased scrutiny in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ...

In a set of remarks preceded by Brooklyn Law School President and Joseph Crea Dean Nicholas W. Allard, famed First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams muses ...

In this essay, Nadine Strossen, the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law at New York Law School and former president of the ACLU, ...

In this series of essays by Brooklyn Law School President and Joseph Crea Dean Nicholas W. Allard, U.S. Court of Appeals Senior Judge and ...

In this article, Brooklyn Law School Professor Joel M. Gora, an IFS Academic Advisor, examines the impact of the Roberts Court on First Amendment ...

In this article by New York University School of Law Professor Samuel Issacharoff, the author examines the effect of multiple factors, including strict campaign ...

In this short essay, Institute for Free Speech Chairman and Co-Founder and Capital University Law School Professor Bradley A. Smith argues that academic efforts ...

This analysis by Thomas E. Patterson of the Harvard Kennedy School and Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy evaluates news media coverage ...

Abstract: There is exploding academic and non-academic interest in the relative influence of economic “haves” and “have-nots” on public policy. In a recent, widely referenced ...

The political and legal battle over campaign finance reform hinges on differing views about the importance of such regulations for preserving and enhancing the integrity ...