Search Results

Showing 471 - 480 of 790 results

Latest News

Blog

Whining college students need lessons in tolerance and free speech

[…] place" —-by which is meant an academic environment uncontaminated with ideas that they find "offensive." And by "offensive," students mean expression that deviates from a politically correct orthodoxy of received opinion. By this standard, any criticism, any dissent or disagreement, is not merely unwelcome, but actually threatening and harmful in a way that […]
- Free Expression
November 18, 2015
Latest News

Blog

When mayors evade disclosure rules by using personal email accounts for city business, it is democracy that suffers. We’ll know soon if the courts, like the public, have lost patience.

[…] public record depends on its content only, and that the city possessed the records through the mayor as the city's agent. The Superior Court decision is clearly correct. The mayor's possession of the contested emails is imputed to the city and establishes legal possession by the city in the same way that the city […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
February 6, 2014
Latest News

Blog Cases

Victory for newspaper publisher Tim Crews and FAC in Appeals Court decision

[…] crushing penalty in the form of an award of legal fees. The court said: "Counsel and their clients have a right to present issues that are arguably correct, even if it is extremely unlikely that they will win." FAC became involved in Crews’ defense after he was ordered to pay the district’s legal fees. […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
July 20, 2013
Latest News

Blog

US Supreme Court ‘government speech’ rulings should curb government misuse of anti-SLAPP laws

[…] petition or free speech" since government speech, the US Supreme Court has made clear, does not implicate first amendment rights. Anti-SLAPP laws are due for a mid-course correction that could come as soon as the California Supreme Court’s decision in the Park case. This will be a welcome development. Although the US Supreme Court’s […]
- Free Expression
December 22, 2015
Latest News

Advocacy Blog

Update on open-government legislative proposals in Sacramento
- Government Transparency and Accountability
June 6, 2009
Latest News

Cases Press Release

UCLA Turns Over Video of Contentious Event with Treasury Secretary After Public Records Requests Flood in
- Free Expression
- Government Transparency and Accountability
March 12, 2018
Latest News

Blog

Trumping Trump: California’s Attack on the First Amendment

California leaders have scrambled to position themselves at the vanguard of the resistance to President Trump, with Attorney General Xavier Becerra filing some 50 lawsuits against the Trump Administration, including—ironically as we shall see—at least one challenging the president’s failure to release records under federal open-records laws. The state Legislature—more than two-thirds Democratic—passed a "sanctuary […]
- Free Expression
- Press Freedom
May 21, 2019
Latest News

Blog

To take the sleaze out of judicial elections, ethics rules should bar lawyers who contribute money to judges from practicing before those judges

[…] hearing on Friday. Judges in California are urged to post the names of their lawyer-donors in their courtrooms, but few do (and, in any event, disclosure doesn't cure the conflict.) This system makes no sense. State supreme courts should revise their ethics rules to forbid lawyers--and their colleagues in law firms--from practicing before a […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
June 3, 2009
Latest News

The Rowan County KY Clerk has no “right” to refuse marriage licenses to gay couples

[…] it was a setback for gay rights, jeopardizing the strategically planned claim for same-sex marriage when the Prop 8 case finally reached the US Supreme Court. The correct choice for both Ms. Davis and then-Attorney General Brown, if they feel strongly enough about these issues, is to resign. Short of that, their responsibility […]

September 3, 2015
Latest News

Blog

The Hannity Reveal Was Huge News — But Everyone Missed The Most Important Point

[…] First Amendment required Judge Wood to ask, which is: "is there a very good reason that Hannity’s name must not be revealed publicly?" McCarthy may be correct as a general matter that "judicially endorsed standards" prohibit "identifying uncharged persons in legal proceedings attendant to criminal investigations." But once Cohen’s lawyers sought to submit […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
May 8, 2018