Lies
Here's a great case. The Washington state Supreme Court declared, 5-4, that a law banning candidates from lying was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
I agree. The way it works, pretty much everything the other side says sounds like a lie. Enforcing the law would mean endless lawsuits over almost every utterance, getting in the way of robust debate, not to mention leading to very likely bad verdicts from partisan judges.
In a political race, who's lying should be determined by the court of public opinion.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
3 Comments:
Worse yet, under the current Washington system, it wasn't even partisan judges making the verdicts, but rather partisan executive branch political appointees. Talk about a recipe for disaster.
When did lying become such a big deal? I trace it to overzealous Whitewater prosecutors and porno author Ken Starr
A few of the examples cited by Daniel Shore [ph] on NPR in his radio editorial supporting this decision were amusing. E.g. when Bush says that the bill he vetoed would have extended SCHIP to families earning $85,000, and even senators of his own party say that's simply not true, should we be able to fine him for lying? Book 'em, Danno!
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