Supreme Court to decide whether lying is allowed in political campaigns
by Alex Moore Apr 17, 2014
deathandtaxesmag.com
Wednesday the Supreme Court announced it will hear a case that boils down to whether or not to allow flat-out lying in political campaigns in the state of Ohio. The complainant’s argument? Lying about political opponents is part of their First Amendment rights.
The story goes like this: Back in 2010 an anti-abortion group called the Susan B. Anthony List placed a slew of billboard attack ads against Democratic candidates accusing them of supporting taxpayer funding for abortions. Susan B. Anthony’s reasoning was that the candidates supported the Affordable Care Act, and therefore supported state-subsidized abortions. One of the candidates they wanted to target was Ohio Rep. Steve Driehaus.
Now, regardless of your politics on the matter there was just no consensus at the time on whether ACA would cover abortions. As late as January of this year—four years later—the argument was still raging in Congress.
Ohio is one of 17 states with laws explicitly banning lying in political campaigns. Since there was no basis for saying that supporting the ACA was tantamount to supporting state-funded abortion, Rep. Driehaus appealed to the state election board, and the company selling the billboard space refused to sell Susan B. Anthony List the ad slandering him.
Driehaus ended up losing his bid, but Susan B. Anthony never let it go. They were so pissed that they weren’t allowed to lie about him in order to gain advantage for their candidate in the race that they sued. A federal judge threw out the case in 2011 since the billboards never ran, but now the case is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. So that the anti-abortion group can defend their Constitutional right to lie in order to jockey for political advantage.
This isn’t a joke—this is literally their argument. They’re framing it slightly differently, of course—a Susan B. Anthony spokesperson said “The Ohio Election Commission statute demonstrates complete disregard for the Constitutional right of people to criticize their elected officials.” But make no mistake: All she’s really saying is, “How are we supposed to win if we can’t lie?”
For his part, Driehaus asserts that lying in political campaigns is tantamount to defamation and spreading misinformation in the middle of the most important national conversation we can have—the one that determines the future of the country. Which sounds reasonable. The right to free speech doesn’t cover your right to scream fire in a crowded movie theater, to blab about how you’re going to kill the president, or to tweet terror threats at airlines, for that matter. It probably shouldn’t protect your right to willfully corrupt the democratic process, either. “Not every candidate has millions of dollars to spend on TV ads, and it’s difficult to get the truth out, especially when constituents are bombarded with messages,” Driehaus said.
Should be interesting. Given the Supreme Court’s recent track record on Citizens United and McCutcheon they don’t seem particularly inclined to protect political discourse from outside influences. So my guess is that it’s about to be open season for lying in politics. |
