Sometimes The Good Guys Win
HLLI’s Ted Frank joins Tony Kinnett to discuss injunctions regarding Gavin Newsom’s anti-first amendment law in California
It’s not every day that you praise a lawyer. I’m just going to lay it out there on the line here. There are a couple of guys, though, that when they hit the courtroom, the bulldog comes out to fight on behalf of individuals whose rights are being trampled. One of the leaders in that category is none other than Ted Frank from the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute. I believe the New York Times has called you the leading critic of abusive class action settlements. When it comes to bringing the hammer down, you’re the guy… You guys just scored a huge victory because Gavin Newsom got his undies in a bunch over AI generated political memes basically so that if you out there, you know, made an AI generated video where Gavin Newsom was saying. You know, I like licking dirt. Then that would be illegal in California because ohh, that’s naughty, naughty using AI generative stuff. You guys sued and I believe you secured an injunction against these nonsensical new California laws. Tell us a bit about that.
Sure, absolutely one of the problems. The First Amendment litigation is that you can bring the lawsuit, but then federal courts might not want to hear it. There’s a doctrine called standing in the federal courts, and you have to prove that you’re actually under a reasonable apprehension of prosecution for whatever the law is doing. So, when the summer Elon Musk retweeted a meme from a YouTuber, our client now who goes by the moniker Mr. Reagan, like Doctor Pepper… He had a very funny, uh, YouTube video where he used AI generated Vice President Harris voice to mimic her political ad. Except, she was. The parodying, uh, left wing talking points and right-wing talking points about the left-wing talking points.
But it was very plainly satire and Elon Musk retweeted it on X and then Gavin Newsom retweeted Elon Musk and says videos like this should be illegal…You know, aside from the insanity of trying to ban political satire. You now had a potential client who was being threatened by the governor of the state of California, and there would be no question that he would have standing to challenge the laws that the governor is saying he’s going to use against you. So, we were very fortunate to be able to sign up Mr Reagan. We offered to represent him pro bono. He was happy to have the free legal assistance with his home state threatening to come down on him like a ton of bricks. And within 42 minutes of Governor Newsom signing the law, which we had been tracking because of his original tweet, we signed up the client. We were ready to go with lawsuit and we filed in federal District Court in the Eastern District of California, which is Sacramento and within a week of that brought a motion for preliminary injunction. And the judge took briefing and within a couple of weeks he had enjoined California against enforcing the law against anybody.
Listen to the discussion full here:
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