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 ...

Beginning in March of 2010, the Internal Revenue Service began scrutinizing groups applying for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status using politically biased criteria.1 Those groups with names ...

There is a false perception that most states limit all forms of campaign contributions. While many states impose some limits on political giving, the reality ...

Generally, false statement laws prohibit “false” speech about candidates or public officials (including their official voting records). Analogous libel and slander statutes – which also ...

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 ...

The First Amendment protects the right of Americans to associate privately with others. Nonprofits across America have long relied on this right to organize ...

The freedom to associate with others and speak as a group is foundational to democracy. Individuals rarely can change their society, government, or laws ...

The deceptively-named “Honest Ads Act” is a proposal in Congress that would increase regulations for paid political and issue advertising on the Internet – ...

Can the government silence speech about an election simply because the speaker is a corporation? Can it deny voters the opportunity to hear a ...

SpeechNow extended First Amendment rights already protected for individuals to groups of people who pool their resources to speak. The case legalized what is ...

This Issue Brief explains the differences between political and issue advocacy in both layman’s terms and as viewed by the courts. In particular, the ...

Forty-five of the 50 states and the federal government in some way impose limits on the amount individuals or groups can contribute to the ...

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 ...