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Nashville Tennessean Published 10:39 a.m. CT March 11, 2020

First Amendment and Independence Hall(Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The USA TODAY Network in Tennesseejoins news publications across the U.S. in supporting a National Student Essay Competition designed to deepen a recognition of the First Amendment that strengthens freedom of the press and rebuilds trust.

The Tennessean, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, The Knoxville News Sentinel, The Jackson Sun, The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle and the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro are inviting young readers to compete in the contest.

There is no more important time than now to focus conversation and critical reflection on understanding the crucial relationships among the First Amendment, a free press, and the foundations of democracy.

Students in grades six through eight, grades nine through twelve, and those at universities and colleges are invited to submit essays up to 500 words examining the state of freedom of the press in the United States today in light of the First Amendment to our Constitution. The specific topic is:Why a free press matters in a democracy." Send essays to USA TODAY Network Tennessee Opinion and Engagement Director David Plazas at dplazas@gannett.com.

Hear more Tennessee Voices: Get the weekly opinion newsletter for insightful and thought provoking columns.

National Student Essay Competition Director Mary Kay Lazarus said, The competition is designed to engage the important voices of our students, voices that are vital to the future of a robust democracy, and to expand national dialogue about press freedom by encouraging discussion at home and in school.

Students may submit essays from now through Friday April 17. Winners in each category selected by one of the network publicationswill then be submitted to a national jury who will select the semi-finalists and then the finalists by early September 2020. The publications will announcewinners the first week in June.

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The national winner in each category (grades six-eight; grades nine-twelve; and grades university/college) will each receive a $5,000 check from the Boston Globe Foundation. The winning essayist with the highest ranking among the three categories will also receive a full four-year scholarship, currently valued at $38,000 a year, to Westminster College in Salt Lake City.

Prizes will be awarded late fall at the 15th Annual McCarthey Family Foundation Lecture Series: In Praise of Independent Journalism.

For more information and entry guidelines, visit https://mklpr.com/national-student-essay-competition.

Read or Share this story: https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2020/03/11/tennessee-students-submit-essay-press-freedom-compete-money/5015271002/

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Tennessee students: Submit essay on freedom of the press and compete for prize money - Tennessean

Years ago, at the now defunct Warehouse Grille (since rebranded Flamingo A Go Go) on Magazine & St. Joseph and hours before the Saints were scheduled to play the Carolina Panthers, a woman from Baton Rouge decided that was the perfect time to confront me over an alleged tweet that insulted her.

While I believed that this was the wrong place and time to do it, as well as an ambush of sorts, I also felt that the woman, who was rather profane in the confrontation and wouldnt give me a chance to profusely apologize, was well within her right to voice her displeasure. She was allowed that space to express how she felt, regardless of the tone and the word choice she used in her interaction with me.

Recently, two well-known jerks, former baseball player Aubrey Huff and insufferable gun advocate Kaitlin Bennett, have gone off the deep end about their First Amendment rights being trampled on by people who disagree with their political views. To them, they feel that being made fun of at Ohio University or being disinvited to a championship celebration is some liberal agenda.

When in actuality, its not.

The reason why Aubrey Huff, who played a major role in the Giants winning their first World Series since 1954, had nothing to do with his freedom to be a jerk or even his unwavering support of Donald Trump.

Huffs disinvite to the 10-year celebration of the 2010 championship celebration was largely in part due to the fact that he posted tweets about teaching his kids how to use a gun in the event that Bernie Sanders defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election as well as insulting tweets about MLBs first full-time female coach, Alyssa Nakken, who was hired by the Giants earlier this year.

Of course, like any clueless jerk, Huff was too stupid to realize that the Giants were well within their right to disinvite him to any event revolving around the team. So much so that he decided to tweet at Major League Baseball and Trump about what he felt was a grave injustice.

Over 2,000-plus miles away in Athens, Ohio, insufferable gun advocate Kaitlin Bennett (Im not sure we can even call her that) decided to pay a surprise visit to Ohio University on Presidents Day to ask students questions about the holiday. And while Bennett was well within her right to appear on the Ohio University campus unannounced, the students, who probably wanted to spend their Mondays doing something else, was well within their right to voice their displeasure about her visit.

Hours after being chased off the Ohio University campus, Bennett took a page out of the Aubrey Huff playbook, lamenting that the Ohio University campus police didnt do enough to protect her from protestors and said that Trump should strip funding from schools that dont do enough to protect his supporters.

This is what happens when a Trump supporter goes to a college campus, she wrote on Twitter about the protest.

Im pretty certain that Ohio University, like any other university in the country, has their lions share of Trump supporters on campus.

But the reason why the students at Ohio University, just like everyone else she comes into contact with, confronts her and makes her whine on social media like my four year-old surrogate niece in Broadmoor when things dont go her way, is because she goes out of her way to look for a fight when she goes into journalist mode.

Instead of asking questions without personal bias and a snarky tone, she does the complete opposite when she talks to college students, people that are for the most part 2-4 years younger than her. More importantly, she becomes petulant when the students that she interview dont agree with her controversial opinions.

According to the framers of the United States Constitution, the First Amendment means that we have the freedom to voice our opinions without the government stepping in. Meaning that both Bennett and Huff have the freedom to support whoever they want and be a jerk along the way.

However, while we as Americans have the freedom to be jerks, it doesnt mean that our jerk-like ways come without consequence.

For Huff, who actually had a solid baseball career and won two rings with the Giants, his jerk-like ways on social media, not his political support, cost him a chance to partake in the championship ceremony with his 2010 teammates.

The Giants were well within their rights to deny him that privilege.

That same line of thinking applies to Bennett as well. While she has the freedom to be a jerk and support whoever she wants, the downside of that is paying a hefty price, something that I learned years ago in a crowded Warehouse Grille and what Huff sorely doesnt want to learn.

You can huff and puff, tweet to Trump, and take your ball.

But sooner or later, youre going to be a sideshow attraction that everyone ignores.

View post:
First Amendment Gives You A Right To Be A Jerk, But With A Price - Big Easy Magazine

Floridians looking to amend the state Constitution to expand Medicaid or allow recreational cannabis will face a more costly and complicated process under a bill headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Florida House on Wednesday voted, 73-45, for a bill (SB 1794) that would impose new barriers for citizen groups seeking to collect enough voter signatures to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot.

The Senate voted, 23-17, for the bill earlier in the week. Both votes were along party lines, with the Republicans in support and Democrats in opposition.

The bill will make it harder for citizen groups to trigger a Florida Supreme Court review of the ballot measures by increasing the required number of voter signatures from 10 percent of the total voters in the last presidential election to 25 percent. Court approval is a critical step in placing an amendment on the ballot.

This year, citizen petition groups, like those trying to legalize recreational marijuana or expand Medicaid coverage, had to collect 76,620 validated signatures to qualify for a court review. Under the bill, they would have needed to collect nearly 192,000 signatures.

Other changes include requiring citizen initiatives to collect signatures in more congressional districts in order to trigger the court review. It would increase from at least a quarter of the 27 congressional districts to at least half, which would mean 14 districts.

The bill also prohibits citizen groups from using voter signatures gathered in one election for a later election. Currently, the signatures are valid for two years after they are collected.The bill would allow local supervisors of elections to charge the actual cost of verifying the voter signatures that are submitted for review.

And the bill would give the state Supreme Court the authority to decide whether the ballot measures are facially invalid under the U.S. Constitution.

Opponents said the measure is another attempt to limit the use of citizen petition drives that have led to constitutional amendments that limited class sizes in schools, linked a state minimum wage to an inflation index, authorized the use of medical marijuana, established voting rights for ex-felons, and directed lawmakers to spend more money on conservation lands.

Voters will get a chance this fall to vote on another citizen initiative that would raise Floridas minimum wage to $15 an hour over a period of several years.

Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, a Miami-Dade County Democrat who opposed the measure, said the bill adds more barriers to the petition process that will effectively eliminate the ability of grassroots groups to put issues before the voters.

Were just making the citizen initiative process more costly and more complicated, forcing operations from grassroots to professional, Rodriguez said. Its taking a system that was meant for citizens to act when this Legislature would not and flipping it on its head and making it something that only the billionaires can access.

In the House, Democrats said the increased regulations were an infringement on the First Amendment rights of voters to petition their government.

I just cant sit quietly by while we are taking power away from the people, said Rep. Margaret Good, a Sarasota Democrat. We dont have to have constitutional amendments, if we do what the people wanted us to do.

But Rep. James Grant, a Tampa Republican who supported the bill, said the legislation would not prevent citizen groups from advancing constitutional amendments, although he acknowledged the measure was increasing the signature threshold and adding more regulations.

I stand ready to have lawsuits again filed against this Legislature. I welcome the argument that this would violate the First Amendment, Grant said. Im confident in that argument, our product is sound because nobody here is telling voters that they cant engage or cant speak. What were actually saying is speak louder.

Here is an earlier Florida Phoenix story on the issue.

Read more:
Lawmakers send a bill to governor making it harder for citizen groups to advance constitutional amendments - Florida Phoenix

3/11/2020

Well, that didnt take long, thankfully. It seems last Thursday afternoon, a piece of legislation was filed by local state senators Sandra Cano and Betty Crowley, along with others. The Stop Guilt by Accusation Act was meant to ban media from selectively reporting certain facts.

Legislators noted that the First Amendment to the Constitution, the first and most important article in the Bill of Rights, said Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press. Then came the bill, abridging freedom of the press and promising $10,000 fines for non-compliance.

The senators had filed the bill at the request of Rep. Grace Diaz, of Providence, who met a man last year who felt he had been mistreated by the media.

Our editor, Ethan Shorey, upon learning of the bill, immediately tweeted it out, and the race was on as WPRIs Ted Nesi and others began asking questions.

Soon after, the bill was withdrawn. Well done! But then came the Friday Providence Journal story, and the headline and story became more about the man who asked for the bills filing than about the First Amendment. It seems the man, Chris Sevier, of Atlanta, is an anti-abortion and anti-LGBT activist. Wrote the Journal: According to a March 2 story about Sevier on the website Mississippitoday.org:He sued Apple for their laptops not blocking porn that he said killed his marriage. Hes drafted anti-LGBT bills that have been pushed by lawmakers in several states. He tried to marry his laptop in three states in apparent protest over same-sex marriage.

OK, so hes a right-wing activist making some very strange claims (and thats being kind).

But I was disappointed to read Diaz say, My feeling is beyond what I can express, after learning of Seviers history. If I knew, I would run ten-thousand-million miles away from that guy.So her sin, apparently, was talking to a right-winger, and not trying to limit press freedom. Wow. Lets never do that again!

Let me just say this: Obviously, I stand with journalists who were horrified by this bill. Every legislator should know from Civics 101 that there will never be a case or reason to abridge the free press. Period! There will never, ever be a circumstance where people would come to trust government censors and busybodies over their own ability to sort through news.

That said, I think Sevier has a point. His complaint was that the media did stories on accusations about him, but never followed up when he was acquitted. Sevier was left, he said to Diaz, with a damaged reputation and no recourse to set the record straight.

I wont speak for anyone beyond myself, but yes, this happens. And it can be damaging, especially in the new world of Google, where facts live online forever.

It would be a huge undertaking for any news outlet to track down every arrest they ever reported and then be forced to report the follow-up facts. But as a publisher, I can see where those accused unjustly would expect exactly that. I didnt begin this newspaper 24 years ago to anger and hurt my neighbors, but it can happen. It is a challenge.

Still, the government will have to live with the medias best efforts at self-policing, as well as monitoring by our readers and those accused. We must do our best, case by case. And yes, even if the complainer is on the fringe of the right-wing. He may be extreme, and I dont support his limits on a free press, but it doesnt mean he doesnt have a point.

Ward is publisher of The Valley Breeze

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TOM WARD Beyond the headline, complainer had a point - Valley Breeze

from the fuck-the-drafting-of-residents-into-Dan-Patrick's-war-over-words dept

Another challenger to the First Amendment has appeared. And his name is Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor of Texas.

Apparently offended by a Senate hearing witness garbed in an anti-police t-shirt, the Lt. Governor welcomed all challengers via Twitter to sue him for violating people's free speech rights.

In case you can't see the tweet, it says:

Outraged to see this T-shirt at a Senate Hearing Thur. Future witnesses beware. No one will ever be allowed to wear such a vulgar shirt in a Senate hearing again-especially one that denigrates the brave men & women of law enforcement. Want to take me to court? Ok. Make my day.

If you can't see the shirt (and you can't, because Dan Patrick blurred out the offending words/images), it's a hand with the middle finger extended above the phrase "Fuck the police."

Clearly of the belief that Supreme Court precedent almost exactly on point has no bearing on Texas Senate proceedings, the state's second-in-command has promised to ban any t-shirt he subjectively feels is "vulgar," but "especially" the ones that "denigrate" law enforcement.

The Supreme Court precedent -- delivered nearly 50 years ago -- dealt with a 30-day jail term given to a courthouse attendee who wore a "Fuck the Draft" jacket. That clearly denigrated the brave men and women who decided who was eligible to go die for their country in the United States' most infamous losing effort. The Supreme Court ruled that the government violated the First Amendment by demanding citizens only wear/make the most innocuous of statements while in the government's presence.

Patrick's proposal sounds exactly like a content-based ban on speech, which is exactly the sort of thing the First Amendment guards against. But there are those who believe time-and-place restrictions could allow Patrick's ban to bypass the First Amendment. Why? Because the state legislature can do whatever the hell it wants, apparently.

Chuck DeVore, vice president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Austin, disagrees with Patricks critics.

Legislative chambers, DeVore said, have the power to set their own rules of decorum as a co-equal branch of government. While the courts have the power to review laws passed by a legislature, they cannot tell lawmakers how to pass those laws or run their affairs, he said.

Well, that assertion aside, the desire to ban things that offend one government official sure sounds like something a court should rule on. The Lieutenant Governor is on (Twitter) record as welcoming legal challenges to his "won't someone think of the cops?" content-based restriction. These are the oh-so-brave words of a man willing to spend other people's money to defend a move many of those people likely don't agree with. That's the luxury legislators have: the ability to force people to defend indefensible positions by proxy (but also directly via their tax dollars).

At some point, Patrick and his stupid new rule triggered by his triggering will have their day in court. And it seems highly unlikely he'll prevail. When he's done blowing money on forcing the public to respect cops, maybe the state's residents will be kind enough to vote his censorial ass out of office. Until then, the lieutenant governor will remain dissed like the cops he loves so much that he's willing to violate the Constitution for them.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, dan patrick, free speech, fuck the police, texas

Originally posted here:
Lt. Governor Of Texas Gets Offended By An Anti-Police Shirt, Decides He Needs To Start Violating The First Amendment - Techdirt