Legislation

A campaign finance bill introduced only in the last week of the 2019 session raised important First Amendment concerns, prompting the ACLU’s opposition.

This bill would have clarified the current tax exemption that exists for the sales of books by their authors to apply to works of non-fiction as well as fiction.

We testified in favor of this critical legislation, noting that open and equal access is a cornerstone to the ubiquitously used and indispensable medium of the internet.

Rather than confronting the issues that cause individuals to engage in panhandling, this bill sought to ban the practice instead and would have fined a motorist for passing anything out of their window to another individual while in an “active lane of travel.”

Article 5, Section 9 of the first version of the proposed FY 2020 budget included, amongst other potential taxes on "services," a proposed 7% sales tax on "lobbying services", which we argued amounted to a direct levy on the exercise of political speech, a quintessential First Amendment activity.