The regulations, 11 C.F.R. 117.1 - 117.3, attempt to clarify the application of the Federal Election Campaign Act to a variety of Internet campaign activities. Specifically, the Commission explains that a majority of individual Internet campaign activity is free from regulation. Likewise, the proposed regulations would add provisions detailing how corporations and labor organizations may use hyperlinks and Internet endorsements of candidates without the communication being regulated as a contribution, expenditure, or being prohibited entirely.

CIR moved this month to dismiss a lawsuit intended to silence a Washington, DC neighborhood group's opposition to a local housing project for troubled youth. The group, Southeast Citizens for Smart Development (SCSD), opposes plans by Nebraska-based Boys Town to build the project in Washington's southeast sector. SCSD is concerned about putting troubled teenagers into a neighborhood with open-air drug markets and five fatal shootings in recent months. The group also questions the excessive cost to taxpayers of the project, which is financed by both the federal and District governments. After SCSD circulated petitions, publicly criticized the housing project, and lobbied local officials to oppose it, Boys Town responded with a lawsuit against SCSD and two of its leaders. District officials and the City itself were also named as defendants, but are not represented by CIR. The suit charges that the various defendants violated the federal "Fair Housing Act's prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of race and handicap," because many of the youths expected to live in the project will be minorities with mental or emotional disabilities. Never mind that Boys Town failed to cite any evidence that bias underlies opposition to the housing project. In fact, SCSD's leadership and membership includes minorities. In the motion to dismiss, CIR and its co-counsel, the local chapter of the ACLU, argue that SCSD's opposition to the Boys Town project is protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and the right to petition. Boys Town, apparently realizing that its lawsuit is at odds with the First Amendment, has amended its complaint to focus on a single accusation against SCSD, namely that the group violated the Fair Housing Act by bringing a "sham" appeal of the City's issuance of building permits for the project. CIR is confident that its First Amendment defense will succeed, given CIR's successful use of the First Amendment argument in two similar cases. For example, in White v. Lee, CIR represented three Berkeley, California residents in a suit against federal HUD officials who harassed the three for peacefully opposing a housing project. In a precedent-setting victory, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in White that a lawsuit which is not objectively baseless is fully protected by the First Amendment.

CONTACT: Center for Individual Rights, 1233 20th Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20036, 202/833-8400, http://www.cir-usa.org.

In Beaumont, the Fourth Circuit applied that rationale to contributions to candidates. Because not-for-profit ideological corporations pose no corruption threat, then nothing justified prohibiting them from also making contributions. Requiring them to do so through political action committees "could effectively cripple small, nonprofit advocacy groups that may have few or no ties to the world inhabited by for-profit corporations." The Court concluded that any "congressional interest in minimizing corruption" was adequately addressed by the $1,000 limitation on contributions to a candidate. Contact the James Madison Center for more information.

U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank ruled that the school's dress code was unconstitutional when applied to the student, Elliott Chambers.

Though Frank noted that there are circumstances when a school can prohibit student expression ordinarily protected by the U.S. Constitution, he said Woodbury High School officials failed to demonstrate that Chambers' shirt could disrupt school activities.

The High Court will hear arguments to determine whether free speech rights are violated by a Minnesota rule that forbids a judicial candidate from "announc[ing] his or her views on disputed legal or political issues" during the course of an election campaign.

Visit www.jamesmadisoncenter.org for more information.

• Opening Brief
• Reply Brief
• Application of Proposed Amicus Curiae Airport Working Group PAC brief in support of reconsideration
  
• 9th Circuit Decision
• Amicus brief in support of petitioners for rehearing by Center for Individual Freedom and James Madison Center for Free Speech in Lincoln Club of Orange County v. City of Irvine.