FAC represents Shasta Scout, a nonprofit newsroom in Redding, in demanding Shasta County’s top election official, Registrar of Voters Clinton Curtis, restore the newsroom’s journalists to its press release distribution list. Curtis told Shasta Scout he did not think it was a “legitimate” newsroom due to its “political lean” and nonprofit status.
FAC’s letter notes Curtis’s decision violates the First Amendment, writing: “The government may not condition its distribution of press releases on its perception of what publications are deemed ‘legitimate.’”