President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a House Republican Conference meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill on Nov. 13, 2024 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Allison Robbert-Pool/Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump ordered congressional Republicans on Wednesday to block a broadly popular bill to protect press freedoms, likely ending any chance of the U.S. Senate clearing the legislation.

The measure would limit federal law enforcement surveillance of journalists and the government’s ability to force disclosure of journalists’ sources, codifying regulations the Department of Justice has put in place under President Joe Biden.

The House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved it last year and it passed the House by voice vote in January.

“REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL!” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, in all capital letters on Wednesday, linking to a PBS segment about the measure.

Substantial floor time is generally required in the Senate to bypass the process that allows a single member to hold up the chamber’s business. With Democrats prioritizing confirmation of Biden’s judicial nominees before they lose their majority in January, it is unlikely they would bring a vote on the measure without the unanimous consent of all 100 senators.

Trump’s influence within the Senate Republican Conference makes reaching unanimous consent exceedingly unlikely.

The bill’s House sponsor, California Republican Kevin Kiley, accepted the bill’s defeat in a statement Thursday.

“Based on the feedback we’ve received from Senators and President Trump, it’s clear we have work to do to achieve consensus on this issue,” he said. “I’m looking forward to working with the new Administration on a great many areas of common ground as we begin a new era of American prosperity.”

A Kiley spokesperson declined to provide further details about senators’ feedback on the measure. A spokesperson for U.S. Senate Judiciary ranking Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina did not respond to a message seeking comment.

In the House, 19 members from both parties, including Republicans Barry Moore of Alabama, Darrell Issa of California, Russell Fry of South Carolina and Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota and Democrats Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Ted Lieu of California and Rashida Tlaib and Dan Kildee of Michigan, signed on as cosponsors.

Protection for local journalists

Jon Schleuss, the president of The NewsGuild-CWA, a national journalists’ union that has supported the bill, noted in a Thursday statement it would protect news sources across the political spectrum.

“Americans would not know about the corruption of former Democratic Senator Bob Menendez or former Republican Representative George Santos without the hard work of local journalists holding power to account,” he said. “All of us depend on journalism, especially local journalism, to shine a light and protect Americans from threats, both foreign and domestic. The PRESS Act protects all voices: news sources, whistleblowers and the journalists they talk to from media outlets across the spectrum.”

In a Thursday statement to States Newsroom, Gabe Rottman, policy director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called the bill a “reasonable and common-sense measure” that enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

“Its passage would put an end to actions the Justice Department has taken under past administrations of both parties to target reporters’ confidential communications when investigating and prosecuting disclosures of government information,” he wrote. “We urge Congress to recognize that there is still a need for a legislative remedy here.”

Press advocacy groups have expressed worries about Trump’s return to the White House, citing a record in his first term that included surveillance of and legal threats against journalists and news organizations.

Seeking retribution

In the closing days of the presidential race, Trump fantasized aloud about reporters being shot.

Press freedom groups also worry that Trump’s promises to use the federal bureaucracy to seek retribution against perceived enemies would extend to journalists.

“In his second term, Trump will make good on these anti-press threats to try to destroy any news outlet, journalist, or whistleblower who criticizes or opposes him,” Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, wrote in a Nov. 6 blog post.

Stern added that Trump would “almost certainly repeal” the protections against surveillance the Department of Justice had put in place during President Joe Biden’s term.

College students this past spring used on-campus encampments , including at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to protest Israel's prosecution of the war on Hamas. New Universities of Wisconsin and UW-Madison policies have place strict limits on institutional statements by the UW system, its universities and university departments, requring viewpoint neutrality about matters outside the university system. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

A new Universities of Wisconsin policy requires statements in the name of UW institutions to avoid expressing a point of view on political or social controversies.

On the heels of the new UW system policy, announced Friday, UW-Madison instituted a policy Friday that echoed the system document. The policy change was first reported on Friday by the UW-Madison student newspaper, The Daily Cardinal.

“Institutional statements issued by university leaders should be limited to matters that directly affect the operations and core mission of the university, and should maintain viewpoint neutrality in any reference to any matter of political or social controversy,” the UW System policy states.

The policy applies to statements issued through university channels and that “are likely to be perceived as speaking in the name of and on behalf of” the university system, any of the university campuses, or any particular department, center, division, program or other university entity.

It applies to UW System President Jay Rothman, system vice presidents, university chancellors or a variety of other academic officers.

The policy permits statements about regulations, legislation or court rulings that directly affect the university. But those statements are only allowed to share support or opposition when authorized by Rothman or a university chancellor.

Both the UW system and the UW-Madison policies include disclaimers emphasizing that they are not intended to infringe on university employees’ free speech rights.

“This policy does not apply to statements made by faculty or staff in exercising academic freedom with respect to scholarship, teaching, and intellectual debate, nor to faculty or staff acting on their own behalf in their capacity as individuals and not purporting to speak in the name of and on behalf of any university or unit,” the UW system policy states.

The UW system’s policy follows a statement issued in May by the UW-Milwaukee  expressing support for a cease fire in Israel’s war on Hamas in the Palestinian territory of Gaza. The statement also included a condemnation of the Hamas attack Oct. 7, 2023 that preceded Israel’s attacks. The statement followed negotiations between the university administration and student groups on the campus who protested Israel’s prosecution of the war. The statement and related actions at UWM prompted criticism from Jewish groups as well as Rothman at the time.

Asked Monday whether the UWM events prompted the change, Mark Pitsch, director of media relations for the UW system, told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email message, “The Universities of Wisconsin, along with peers across the country, for years have discussed how to handle institutional statements and President Rothman decided the time had come for a formal policy.”

In a message to students, staff and faculty Friday explaining the new UW-Madison policy, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin acknowledged she has been among campus leaders throughout the U.S. who have chosen “to make public statements about or take positions on major issues, events, and controversies.”

Mnookin wrote that “I have come to believe that this practice is problematic,” and that such statements delivered by an institutional leader “may, however inadvertently, discourage free expression among the plurality of voices within our university” and “risks crowding out other points of view.”

That applies to messages aimed at comforting and supporting people who are “hurting and suffering in the wake of something that has occurred in the broader world,” she wrote. “And yet, while some may feel comforted by a given message, others may feel excluded or unseen by what is said, and by what is left unsaid.”

As of Monday the American Association of University Professors Wisconsin chapter had no comment on the new policy.

One especially vocal opponent has been Nathan Kalmoe, who holds a staff position at UW-Madison and who sharply criticized the policy on the social media platform BlueSky shortly after it was announced.

Kalmoe is the executive administrative director at the Center for Communication and Civic Renewal in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. In an interview Monday he specified he was speaking for himself and not for the center, the school or the university.

The disclaimers in Madison and UW System policies protecting the right to free speech of individuals are important, Kalmoe said. He contends, however, that the university as an institution and its departments and other units should be free to take stances on significant matters.

He cited as an example statements that the UW-Madison chancellor’s office as well as a number of university departments and programs issued in support of the Black community in the aftermath of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

The university’s declared commitment to equality “means recognizing that certain controversial issues are a direct threat to equality in our society,” Kalmoe said in an interview.

John Lucas, assistant vice chancellor for public affairs at UW-Madison, said in an email message that the new policy “requires a situation to have a direct impact on campus operations or the university’s mission for the university to take an institutional position.”

When that does not apply, the policy allows for an informational statement from the institution “to acknowledge the situation and provide support and resources,” Lucas said. “In all cases, it would also allow faculty members, in their individual capacity, to continue sharing their own views in all manner of ways.”

Asked whether the new policy would have permitted statements of the sort that followed Floyd’s death, Lucas said it was “hard to retroactively assess a George Floyd statement,” but added, “that was a situation that also had a direct impact locally and on campus operations.”

Nevertheless, Kalmoe said issues in wider society such as racism, sexism, antisemitism or islamophobia can have a direct effect on students and their wellbeing on campus and should prompt university support. By treating them instead as subjects of controversy requiring a neutral perspective, he said, it falls short.

Kalmoe also believes the university has a responsibility to set a moral example on such subjects.

“If the campus is muzzled on those kinds of things that are directly related to our mission and to the intellectual and moral values of the university,” he said, “then we’re removing from public discourse a vital voice that influences how people think about these issues, and forfeiting the opportunity for leadership on these issues that are directly related to our values.”