California’s 2nd District Court of Appeals postponed to Jan. 12 oral argument on a Securus appeal of the California Public Utilities Commission’s 7-cent cap on intrastate per-minute rates for incarcerated person calling services (see 2206300026). The court announced the change from Dec. 8 in a Friday docket entry in case B320207.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act’s Section 2 is “a protection against racial discrimination, not a freewheeling license for federal courts to reimagine state government to boost a minority’s preferred political party,” Georgia said Wednesday at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Georgia is appealing a lower court’s ruling that electing Public Service Commission members for specific districts on a statewide, at-large basis, illegally dilutes Black votes. In a reply brief, Georgia disagreed with filings by amicus DOJ and plaintiffs, who are Black voters from the Atlanta area (see 2210270027 and 2210200035). Section 2 doesn't guarantee election wins, “just a playing field free of racial bias,” the state said: For there to be a violation, "the majority must vote on the basis of race, not political differences." Plaintiffs view “would affirmatively transform all political disagreement into racially divisive disputes,” it said. Plaintiffs and DOJ “seem to welcome the unconstitutional idea that [section] 2 is a proportional-representation machine that ensconces Democrats alone into advantageous electoral districts.” It’s irrelevant how feasible it is to change elections to single-member districting, in which candidates would be elected by only people in their specific district, said Georgia. “The reason the district court cannot order a quasi-judicial, statewide commission to break itself up into pieces is that it would change the ‘form of government,’ not that it would be literally impossible.”

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument on New York’s affordable broadband law Jan. 12, the court said in a Wednesday text entry in case 21-1975. The state appealed after a district court stopped it from enforcing 2021’s Affordable Broadband Act in June that year. The New York State Telecommunications Association, ACA Connects, NTCA, CTIA and USTelecom said federal law preempted the ABA, which proposed requiring 25/3 Mbps for $15 monthly for eligible low-income consumers. Bipartisan ex-FCC members told the 2nd Circuit in March the New York law improperly regulated broadband rates.

The need to preserve free speech “significantly outweighs” any “inconvenience” for Biden administration officials testifying in Republican states’ lawsuit claiming social media censorship collusion between government officials and platforms (see 2210240057), the U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Monroe said Wednesday (docket 3:22-cv-01213), denying the U.S.’ motion to block the depositions. The federal government argued against the depositions of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly and White House Digital Strategy Director Rob Flaherty. The U.S. said there would be “irreparable harm” if they’re forced to testify because they would be diverted from their official duties. “Numerous courts have held that ordinary discovery burdens, like those associated with preparing for and participating in depositions and/or the expense of discovery, do not constitute irreparable harm,” the court said: The “public interest and the interest of the other parties in preserving free speech significantly outweighs the inconvenience the three deponents will have in preparing for and giving their depositions." The depositions of Murthy, Easterly and Flaherty are scheduled for Dec. 1, Dec. 6 and Dec. 9, respectively.

Plaintiff Alejandro Borges and defendant SmileDirectClub stipulated to the dismissal of Borges’ August 2021 class action alleging violations of the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act, according to an entry Monday in docket 1:21-cv-23011 at the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida. Each side will bear its own fees and costs, said the stipulation. Borges’ complaint alleged that SmileDirectClub, an orthodontic device company that specializes in teeth alignment products and offers its products to consumers online, resorted to aggressive telemarketing calls to consumers without their prior consent, in violation of the FTSA.

An Oklahoma law adding telemarketing restrictions beyond the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act took effect Tuesday. The Oklahoma Telephone Solicitation Act (OTSA) is similar to the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act, a mini-TCPA that has produced many class-action lawsuits. OTSA expands the definition of an auto-dialer and includes a private right of action with willful violations subject to $1,500 fines per call or text.

Maryland said a federal court is “free to proceed” with Nov. 29 oral argument on the state’s ban on passing its digital ad tax’s costs to customers. U.S. District Court for Northern Maryland Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby asked Maryland last week to weigh in on whether the hearing should still happen given a state court decision to strike down the tax (see 2210240064). “The ruling issued by the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County … does not affect the ability of this Court to adjudicate this case, because the circuit court’s ruling is subject to appeal, and the outcome of that case will not be known at least until the conclusion of the appeal,” Maryland wrote Monday. Since Comcast, plaintiff in the state case, didn’t “exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit, Maryland statutes and precedent pose a considerable obstacle to affirmance of the circuit court’s ruling,” the state added. Federal plaintiff U.S. Chamber of Commerce earlier said the state ruling doesn't moot the federal case.

Keiser University “denies all allegations” in an Aug. 15 amended class action that it violated the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act or that plaintiff Maria Fernanda Soto Leigue and members of the potential class “are entitled to relief,” said the school’s answer to the complaint Friday (docket 1:22-cv-22307) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Miami. The complaint alleged that due to its high student turnover rate, which ranks in the top 10 among private U.S. universities, Keiser is forced to implement aggressive marketing strategies to recruit new students so it can ultimately generate revenue. Keiser denies that it charges a tuition for undefined educational services, said its answer. “Keiser sometimes charges tuition for teaching and instruction, which is not a consumer good or service within the meaning of the FTSA,” it said. Keiser “does not dispute” that the plaintiff submitted an inquiry to the school for a human resources administrator degree and courses, and agreed that Keiser may contact her regarding her inquiry, it said. “Keiser specifically denies that any such communications constitute telephonic sales calls within the meaning of the FTSA,” it said. The FTSA violates the First Amendment “on its face and as applied because it places a content-based restriction on speech,” said the school. The statutory damages sought “are excessive and thus violate” the constitution’s due process clause, it said.

A status hearing was set for Nov. 8 in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois for an AT&T executive accused of unlawfully influencing former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D) to get legislation passed that was favorable to the company, according to filings in docket 1:22-cr-00520. A $10,000 appearance bond for Paul La Schiazza, a former president of AT&T Illinois, was set Thursday. La Schiazza was indicted earlier this month on charges he arranged to pay Madigan’s associate Michael McClain to ease the passage of carrier of last resort legislation that would make it easier for AT&T to terminate its obligation to provide landline telephone services to all Illinois residents. The legislation became law in 2017, and saved AT&T millions of dollars, according to the indictment. AT&T Illinois reached an agreement with DOJ earlier this month to pay $23 million (see 2210140069) in connection with the incident.

The U.S. disagreed with Georgia’s defense of electing Public Service Commission members for specific districts on a statewide, at-large basis. At the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Georgia’s state secretary argued that partisanship, not race, explained election results that have led to mainly white commissioners over the years, and federal courts can’t force new government models on states (see 2210200035). A lower court found that Georgia’s elections system for the PSC illegally dilutes Black votes in violation of Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The 11th Circuit should reject the state’s “argument that plaintiffs’ Section 2 vote-dilution claim fails because the racially polarized voting patterns in Commission elections are purportedly correlated with partisan preferences,” DOJ wrote in a Wednesday amicus brief in case 22-12593. While courts may consider evidence of political preferences, “such evidence can defeat a Section 2 vote-dilution claim only when the evidence proves that, despite apparent racial polarization, minority-preferred candidates have the potential to succeed under the existing electoral framework,” it said. “The district court did not clearly err in concluding that the Secretary failed to meet that difficult standard.” DOJ disagreed no remedy is available. “Single-member districting is the standard remedy for vote dilution caused by an at-large system,” it said. “The district court did not clearly err in concluding that Georgia lacks sufficiently compelling interests to justify the continued use of its current method of electing Commission members.”