under the First Amendment as a matter of law.”). The California Supreme Court has not drawn the outer limits of activity that fur thers the exercise of free speech rights. It seems to suffice, however, that the defendant’s activity is communicative, cf. Commonwealth Energy Corp. v. Investor Data Exch., Inc., 110 Cal.App.4th 26, 1 Cal.Rptr.3d 390, 393 n. 5 (2003), and some courts do not discuss this part of the inquiry at all, see, e.g., Integrated Healthcare Holdings, Inc., 44 Cal.Rptr.3d at 522-26 (not discussing whether an email message was “in furtherance” of free speech rights). Thus, the courts of California have interpreted this piece of the defendant’s threshold showing rather loosely. See also Paul for Council v. Hanyecz, 85 Cal.App.4th 1356, 102 Cal.Rptr.2d 864, 870-71 (2001) (<HOLDING>), overruled on other grounds by Equilon Enters.
holding that the plaintiffs right to political speech is fully in accord with the publics interest in free speech and association recognizing that free exercise claims implicating other constitutional protections such as free speech could qualify for strict scrutiny review to the extent the plaintiff could make out a colorable claim that it was denied an exemption from the school districts nondiscrimination claim based on religion or content of speech recognizing that code is speech holding that campaign money laundering was in furtherance of political speech but an invalid exercise of free speech rights because it was illegal holding that claim under connecticut law for employer discrimination based upon the employees exercise of privacy and free speech rights not preempted