April 21, 2014
MEDIA
CONTACT
Maurice A . Thompson
(614) 340-9817
Supreme Court Argument Tuesday:
Are Ohio's Political Speech Regulations Constitutional?
Are Ohio's Political Speech Regulations Constitutional?
1851 Center amicus brief
maintains that political class uses elections commission and its regulations to
attack grass-roots citizen activity
Columbus, OH - On Tuesday morning the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus - whether Ohioans can stop the enforcement actions of the Ohio Elections Commission, and further, whether regulations prohibiting "false statements" regarding "public officials" or "candidates" violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Elections
Commissions actions are often filed by well-heeled political veterans such as
incumbents and well-financed campaigns, to intimidate and squelch the speech of
political rivals and dissenters. These legal actions are often effective, since
political novices with little money are unable to travel to Columbus and hire a
lawyer to defend themselves at multiple lengthy Commission hearings.
The 1851 Center
for Constitutional Law filed an amicus curiae brief in this case on behalf of
numerous Ohioans who have been frivolously forced to appear before the
Commission to defend their political speech.
The 1851
Center Brief explains and argues as follows:
"Ohio's
Statute allows a politically-interested party to file a complaint against
another, no matter whether the respondent's speech is true or not,"
meaning that "Ohioans have consistently faced commission hearings and even
potential fines and criminal penalties in response to clearly-protected core
political speech."
"Ohio
maintains an administrative scheme that, on the premise of policing only intentionally
false speech, subjects political speech to harassment."
The brief
recounts Ohio cases where Congressman Pat Tiberi's affiliates filed an action
to silence a primary opponent who was mocking his voting record; where
Congressman Latta filed an action to silence those indicating that he "has
a record of supporting higher taxes"; where a favored candidate who lost a
township trustee election sued those who chatted on Facebook about whether the
candidate was a "pornographer"; where a powerful ballot issue effort
sued a citizen who criticized a government light rail plan as "one of the
worst plans in the country"; where a township trustee alleged that his
opponent was not truly an "organic" farmer; and numerous cases where
upstart local candidates simply omitted the word "for" in their
campaign literature ("John Smith, Treasurer" vs. "John Smith for
Treasurer").
"A
common question asked regarding this case is whether the 1851 Center and others
are defending a 'right to lie.' The answer is 'no.' Our efforts here are aimed
at defending Ohioans from a panel of state government bureaucrats empowered to
arbitrate what is true and what is false, in the realm of political
debate," according to Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center.
"Our
view, based on our experience litigating these type of cases, is that a
government Commission cannot be trusted to accurately distinguish true
political speech from false speech; and further, citizens need breathing space
to criticize public officials, without concern that those officials will turn
around and sue them for cavalier statements."
The
Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed that "in the free society ordained
by our Constitution, it is not the government, but the people individually as
citizens and candidates who must retain control over the quantity and range of
debate on public issues."
In
addition to the 1851 Center's amicus brief, 1851 Center Chairman Bradley Smith
has filed an amicus brief, and 1851 Center Board Member Christopher Finney is
amongst the attorneys challenging the statute.
Tune in for the oral argument live, at 10:00am
on Tuesday April 22, or listen to the archived oral argument later, HERE.
Read the 1851 Center's Amicus Brief HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment