Amendment

The ruling Democratic Party’s (DP) push to put a constitutional change to a national vote in the upcoming local elections fell through Friday as the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) continued to boycott a parliamentary vote on the proposal.

Shortly after Friday’s plenary session opened, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik announced that he will not put the amendment bill to a vote as the PPP warned it would launch a filibuster to block the proposal.

“I convened the plenary session again today in an effort to prevent the first constitutional amendment vote in 39 years from falling through,” Woo said. “But I believe further proceedings would be meaningless, seeing the (PPP) responding with a filibuster.”

The PPP boycotted a vote on the bill Thursday, leaving the unicameral parliament short of a quorum.

Cheong Wa Dae expressed regret over the National Assembly’s failure to pass the bill due to opposition from PPP lawmakers.

“The public will find it difficult to understand why they opposed even minimal constitutional changes aimed at safeguarding national security and democracy,” presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a written briefing, noting that there had been broad public consensus on the need to “reflect the lessons” of former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s Dec. 3, 2024, martial law attempt in the Constitution.

“We urge the National Assembly to continue the discussions on the constitutional amendment with a greater sense of responsibility during the second half and to keep the promise it made to the people,” she added.

President Lee Jae Myung earlier highlighted the need to amend the constitution in “phases” if necessary, saying the Constitution, which has remained unchanged for nearly 40 years since 1987, may now be outdated.

The proposed bill aimed to tighten the rules for declaring martial law, requiring the president to obtain parliamentary approval without delay and stipulating that if the National Assembly rejects the declaration or fails to approve it within 48 hours, the martial law will be immediately nullified.

It also sought to include the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju and the 1979 Busan-Masan pro-democracy protests in the preamble. It currently states that the country inherits the spirit of the April 19 revolution in 1960, which overthrew South Korea’s first president, Rhee Syng-man, over election fraud.

The bill was jointly proposed by 187 lawmakers from the DP and five minor parties.

A constitutional amendment requires two thirds of votes from sitting lawmakers to be put to a national referendum for final approval by a majority of ballots cast.

South Korea is set to hold its quadrennial local elections on June 3.

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SACRAMENTO — The debate over immigration issues has reached a fever pitch nationwide, and Angelica Salas said it’s putting her employees at risk.

Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, said her staff experiences harassment and death threats.

“They ask themselves, what if someone who disagrees with our work can find where I live, will my family be safe?” Salas said, addressing state lawmakers at a recent legislative hearing.”People begin to self-censor; they step away from their work and some leave the field entirely.”

Salas was speaking in support of Assembly Bill 2624, which would provide privacy protections for those facing harassment for working or volunteering with organizations that offer legal and humanitarian aid to immigrants. The bill would create an address confidentiality program, like the one already offered to reproductive healthcare workers, and prohibit people and businesses from selling or posting images or personal information about the protected individuals on the internet.

The measure has drawn ire from Republicans, who argue it could have a chilling effect on free speech and the media. Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) dubbed it the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” and said it would prevent right-wing social media influencers like Shirley from conducting immigrant-related investigations in California.

Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Alameda), who authored the legislation, said the proposed law would help keep people safe — but several 1st Amendment experts this week told The Times the bill could have unintended consequences.

“There could be grounds for concern,” said Jason Shepard, a media law and communications professor at California State Fullerton. “It reflects a legitimate and important state interest in protecting people from harassment and threats. But at the same time, this bill punishes the publication of information.”

The legislation defines “personal information” as anything that identifies, describes or relates to the protected individuals, including their names, addresses, telephone numbers, physical descriptions, driver’s licenses, financial information, license plate numbers and places of employment.

Shepard said the potential new law could be applied unevenly, and the language could have a chilling effect on investigative journalism.

Given the polarized political environment, Shepard said the legislation also could prompt other groups to request similar protections, as those working in a range of professions are facing increasingly heated rhetoric or attacks.

“This is not unique to people who are working in immigration support services; this really could apply to anybody engaged in public debate today,” he said.

Carolyn Iodice, the policy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, known as FIRE, said the organization has noted an uptick in laws nationwide implementing privacy protections for those in certain professions.

She pointed to a statute enacted a few years ago in New Jersey that protects the addresses of judges, prosecutors and police officers. The law was used in 2023 to block an editor with New Brunswick Today from publishing an article about the police chief living two hours outside of the city.

“It was obviously newsworthy, but this officer was able to wield the law against this journalist, and that is the kind of thing we are worried about,” Iodice said. “When you think about handing what could be a huge number of people the ability to just block anything from being posted about them online — it could easily be abused.”

David Loy, the legal director for the nonpartisan First Amendment Coalition, said the measure would censor the free speech of all citizens, not just those who defamed or threatened immigrant aid workers.

“Someone might have a legitimate dispute with them and wants to refer to it online,” he said. “But they could then basically silence [that person] from referring to them on a Yelp review or Facebook posts that has nothing to do with threatening them — and that is going way beyond the narrow exceptions of the 1st Amendment.”

Loy said the coalition reached out to Bonta’s office and hopes to help tweak the bill.

Meanwhile, the legislation continues to face scrutiny from Republicans.

“We exposed CA Democrats for the ‘Stop Nick Shirley’ Act that silences citizen journalists who expose their fraud and corruption,” DiMaio wrote this week on social media.

Shirley released a viral video last year alleging fraud in Somali-run immigrant daycare centers in Minneapolis. He recently shared videos of himself in Sacramento confronting Democrats who support Bonta’s bill.

“The enemy is truly within,” Shirley wrote on Instagram. “When our politicians would rather protect fraudsters and illegal migrants, it’s time for us to stand up or face mass oppression from the traitors.”

Bonta dismissed the assertion that the bill is intended to deter journalists, stating in a news release that “right-wing agitators” and “ineffective legislators” were intentionally spreading misinformation.

Bonta spokesperson Daniel McGreevy said the bill has a straightforward goal of protecting immigrant service providers. He said the office is working to refine the legislation to address concerns and welcomes good-faith dialogue.

The bill is progressing through the state Legislature and most recently was referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Supreme Court justices on Monday questioned whether the state’s Democrat-led legislature complied with constitutional requirements when it sent a congressional redistricting plan to voters, in a case that could help decide the balance of power in the U.S. House.

The new districts, which could net Democrats four additional seats, won narrow voter approval last week. But a Republican legal challenge contends the General Assembly violated procedural rules by placing the constitutional amendment before voters to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. If the court agrees that lawmakers broke the rules, it could invalidate the amendment and render last week’s statewide vote meaningless.

The Virginia court proceedings mark the latest twist in a national redistricting battle between Republicans and Democrats seeking an advantage in a November midterm election that will determine whether Republicans maintain their narrow majority in the U.S. House.

President Trump kicked off a tit-for-tat round of gerrymandering last summer when he urged Texas Republicans to redraw districts to their favor in an attempt to win several additional House seats. That set off a chain reaction of similar moves in other states, leading to the voter approval last week of Virginia’s new map.

Next up is Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has included congressional redistricting on the agenda for a special session of the GOP-controlled Legislature beginning Tuesday.

Virginia arguments focus on what counts as an `election’

During Monday’s arguments, the Virginia Supreme Court focused on whether the new congressional districts should be invalidated because of the process used by lawmakers. The justices issued no immediate ruling.

Because the state’s redistricting commission was established by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the districts. That required approval of a resolution in separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between, to place the amendment on the ballot.

The legislature’s first vote occurred in October — while early voting was underway but before it concluded on the day of the general election. Judicial questioning focused on whether that was too late, because early voting already had begun.

Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, argued that the “election” should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that case, the legislature’s first vote on the redistricting amendment occurred before the election and was constitutional, he told judges.

But an attorney arguing for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, said “election” means the entire period during which people can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that’s the case, then the legislature’s initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution, he said.

Attorneys argue over the rights of voters

The purpose of Virginia’s two-step amendment process, with an intervening election, is so voters can know whether legislative candidates support or oppose a proposed constitutional amendment, McCarthy said.

He pointed to the case of Democratic voter Camilla Simon, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit alongside Republican state lawmakers, who cast an early vote last fall for Democratic Del. Rodney Willett. After she voted, Willett sponsored the Democratic redistricting amendment, and Simon wished she could have undone her vote, McCarthy said.

“None of these voters had any idea this was coming, and that’s not how this process is supposed to work,” McCarthy told the justices.

Those defending the Democratic redistricting plan also contend that the voters’ will should be respected.

The people voted to ratify the constitutional amendment, “and the challengers are asking to overturn that democratic result,” Seligman told reporters after the arguments.

Nationwide redistricting battle has no clear winner so far

So far, the two major parties have battled to a near draw in the states that have redrawn their congressional maps for this year’s midterms.

Republicans think they could win up to nine more seats under revised districts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Democrats think they could win as many as 10 additional seats under new districts in California, Utah and Virginia. But legal challenges remain in both Virginia and Missouri.

Virginia currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who were elected from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts, which narrowly won voter approval on April 21, could give Democrats an improved chance to win 10 districts.

Some candidates already have begun campaigning based on the new districts in advance of the state’s Aug. 4 primary election.

More court battles could remain in Virginia

In January, a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia, ruled that lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session last fall. Circuit Judge Jack Hurley Jr. also ruled that lawmakers failed to initially approve the amendment before the public began voting in last year’s general election and that the state had failed to publish the amendment three months before the election, as required by law. As a result, he said, the amendment is invalid and void.

The Virginia Supreme Court placed Hurley’s order on hold and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.

During Monday’s arguments, justices also raised questions about the ability of lawmakers to expand the agenda for their special session and whether the three-month public notice requirement was important enough to thwart a voter-approved amendment.

Republicans have filed at least two additional legal challenges, which also are winding their way through the courts.

Robertson and Lieb write for the Associated Press. Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Mo. AP writers Allen G. Breed in Richmond and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Citing the First Amendment, a federal judge on Tuesday agreed to permanently block the Trump administration from implementing a presidential directive to end federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, two media entities that the White House has said are counterproductive to American priorities.

The operational impact of U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss’ decision was not immediately clear — both because it will likely be appealed and because too much damage to the public-broadcasting system has already been done, both by the president and Congress.

Moss ruled that President Trump’s executive order to cease funding for NPR and PBS is unlawful and unenforceable. The judge said the First Amendment right to free speech “does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type.”

“It is difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the President does not like and seeks to squelch,” wrote Moss, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

Punishment for ‘past speech’ cited in decision

The judge noted that Trump’s executive order simply directs that all federal agencies “cut off any and all funding” to NPR, which is based in Washington, and PBS, based in Arlington, Virginia.

“The Federal Defendants fail to cite a single case in which a court has ever upheld a statute or executive action that bars a particular person or entity from participating in any federally funded activity based on that person or entity’s past speech,” the judge wrote.

Last year, Trump, a Republican, said at a news conference he would “love to” defund NPR and PBS because he believes they’re biased in favor of Democrats.

“The message is clear: NPR and PBS need not apply for any federal benefit because the President disapproves of their ‘left wing’ coverage of the news,” Moss wrote.

NPR accused the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of violating its First Amendment free speech rights when it moved to cut off its access to grant money appropriated by Congress. NPR also claims Trump wants to punish it for the content of its journalism.

“Public media exists to serve the public interest — that of Americans — not that of any political agenda or elected official,” said Katherine Maher, NPR’s president and CEO. She called the decision a decisive affirmation of the rights of a free and independent press.

PBS chief Paula Kerger said she was thrilled with the decision. The executive order, she said, is “textbook” unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and retaliation. “At PBS, we will continue to do what we’ve always done: serve our mission to educate and inspire all Americans as the nation’s most trusted media institution.”

Last August, CPB announced it would take steps toward closing itself down after being defunded by Congress.

A victory, though incremental, for press freedom

Plaintiffs’ attorney Theodore Boutrous said Tuesday’s ruling is “a victory for the First Amendment and for freedom of the press.”

“As the Court expressly recognized, the First Amendment draws a line, which the government may not cross, at efforts to use government power — including the power of the purse — ‘to punish or suppress disfavored expression’ by others,” Boutrous said in a statement. “The Executive Order crossed that line.”

The judge agreed with government attorneys that some of the news outlets’ legal claims are moot, partly because the CPB no longer exists.

“But that does not end the matter because the Executive Order sweeps beyond the CPB,” Moss added. “It also directs that all federal agencies refrain from funding NPR and PBS — regardless of the nature of the program or the merits of their applications or requests for funding.”

While Trump was sued in this legal action, the case did not include Congress — and the legislative body has played a large role in the public-broadcasting saga in the past year.

Trump’s executive order immediately cut millions of dollars in funding from the Education Department to PBS for its children’s programming, forcing the system to lay off one-third of the PBS Kids staff. The Trump order didn’t impact Congress’ vote to eliminate the overall federal appropriations for PBS and NPR, which forced the closure of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that funneled that money to the TV and radio networks.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press. AP writer David Bauder contributed to this report.