by Guy Page
An angry exchange House Republicans and the ACLU of Vermont over the extent of the First Amendment rights of a pro-Hamas Columbia University student last Thursday was just one of four recent State House discussions about bills involving free speech and freedom of the press.
Campaign advertising restrictions – The Senate on Thursday, March 20 passed a bill that would limit the use of ‘synthetic media’ in political campaigns. The bill now goes to the House.
S.23, The use of synthetic media in elections, would “require the disclosure of deceptive and fraudulent synthetic media within 90 days of an election.” The bill was introduced into the House today.
The bill states that “Synthetic media means an image, an audio recording, or a video recording of an individual’s appearance, speech, conduct, or environment that has been created or intentionally manipulated with the use of digital technology, including artificial intelligence, in a manner that creates a realistic but false representation of the candidate.”
It is a common campaign practice to run unflattering photos of opposing candidates with the use of digital editing. Where this editing process crosses the line to illegal misrepresentation would be subject to the discretion of an elected official who in many cases receives the nomination and support of a political party. The bill allows fines of up to $15,000, and gives the Attorney General or a state’s attorney the right to bring additional legal action against anyone charged with (in their opinion) creating false representation of a candidate.
Medical advertising crackdown – As reported yesterday by VDC, another Senate-approved bill empowers the Attorney General to take legal action against medical advertising he/she deems “untrue.”
Last month, the Senate passed S.28, which would ban “advertising about health care services in this State that is untrue.” The says “Advertising includes representations made directly to consumers; marketing practices; communication in any print medium, such as newspapers, magazines, mailers, or handouts; and any broadcast medium, such as television or radio, telephone marketing, or advertising over the internet, such as through websites and web ads advertisements, and social media.”
Bill would spend State of Vermont advertising dollars instate – Still another bill coming to the floor this week could have both positive and negative impacts on freedom of the press. H244 would require a report on where the State of Vermont spends its advertising money, and would require state government to spend 70% of its substantial advertising budget on in-state media (except job search and tourism advertising).
The bill has passed out of the Government Operations Committee by a 7-4 vote. It’s up for review by the full House this week.
Supporters like Rep. Ken Wells (R-Brownington), the former publisher of the Newport Daily Express, say keeping advertising money in-state will strengthen Vermont’s financially struggling news media. The original “ask” of instate spending was 80% was downgraded to 70% in committee.
Secretary of State said that when she was a legislator from Bradford, the availability of a strong local community newspaper was essential to keep her constituents informed, and to learn what they cared about. The Journal-Opinion is the longtime, independent community newspaper serving Bradford and surrounding towns.
At today’s press conference called to promote the bill, VDC, noting that ‘there are no government shekels without government shackles,’ asked if news media increasingly reliant on government revenue would be hesitant to cover government fairly? Press conference organizer Paul Heintz (formerly VTDigger editor, now a Boston Globe reporter) said in his experience reporters aren’t influenced by advertisers. WCAX station manager Chris Barton said the law would help provide the financial freedom news media needs to stay strong and independent.
ACLU-VT says Hamas sympathizer deportation violates First Amendment – Finally, the First Amendent rights of government-identified terrorist sympathizers and activists became the subject of a lively conversation between Falko Schilling of the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont and several Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee.
Schilling was there to testify in support of S.44, another Senate-approved bill that would limit the governor’s powers to work with federal immigration officials. As Schilling noted, it also would limit state government interaction with the feds and other states, offering protections for abortion rights and transgender services.
But it was the high-profile case of the soon-to-be-deported Columbia University student, Hamas sympathizer, and Syrian national that got the attention of Rep. Zachary Harvey (R-Castleton). Transcript via goldendomevt.com lightly edited for speaker attribution and readability.
[Harvey]: I assume that you’re talking about what’s happening at Columbia as an example of this.
[Schilling]: Yes. That’s a very good example.
[Harvey]: The individual who was detained was aiding and abetting and essentially was a terrorist sympathizer with Hamas. So I just think we wanna be kind of careful because I’m all for protecting Vermont citizens and making sure that we set up those guardrails, however, when that extends into potential terrorist sympathizers and terrorist organizations, I think we just wanna be really careful.”
“People that are gonna be watching this and hearing about this, could be taken as supporting a terrorist organization.”
Schilling bristled.
[Schilling]: “What we’re supporting is the right to exercise free speech…. I would disagree with the characterization he’s a terrorist sympathizer, and that’s also our concern here. Who gets labeled a terrorist and what does that do to erode their due process rights?”
What followed was a lengthy exchange in which Chair Martin LaLonde lost control of the meeting, Democrat Rep. Ian Goodnow dropped the F-bomb, and Rep. Kenny Goslant (R-Northfield) asked what the immigration restrictions were doing to protect the rights of him and his family. Dissatisfied with the answer, he stalked out of the room in anger, ignoring LaLonde’s request for him to return.
Goslant, a member of Judiciary since his first term in 2019, returned several minutes later. The exchange can be seen on YouTube.