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The Supreme Court says it wants to hear a
case that a collision of the life issue, hard-ball
campaigning, and your right
to criticize elected officials.
This is the CitizenLink Report.
Hi. I'm Stuart Shepard along with Bruce Hausknecht
who watches the courts for Focus on the Family.
Hi, Bruce.
Hi, Stuart.
We've all heard people call something "censorship"
when it really wasn't. But in this case that
is an actual case -- a real life case of the
government telling a private group, a non-profit
group, you can't say that.  Let's talk about
the case of the Susan B. Anthony List.
That's exactly right. In 2010 you noticed
there were a couple of important things that
happened that year. One, there was a huge
congressional election in November of that
year but prior to that in March, Obamacare
-- the Affordable Care Act was signed into
law which created a firestorm of controversy
over whether that particular law funded abortions or not.
 
And we said it did. Folks on the other side
of the issue including the president said
- he said "there is no abortion in the bill."
Of course now as we move through time we're
starting to see that indeed there is funding
for abortion tucked away in this bill.
It's through a convoluted payment chain, but it's
still there. We also have 90 cases in court
right now, more than 90 which are challenging
Obamacare over drugs that are included which
may cause early abortions.
There's abortion in the bill.
Right.
But the Susan B. Anthony List wanted to put
up a billboard saying that and they were told
no you can't do that.
That's right. In those November 2010 elections
one of the congressmen running for re-election
was a fellow by the name of Steve Driehaus.
He was a Democrat and he professed to be pro-life.
But he was one of those that at the very end
was convinced to sign on to Obamacare.
Susan B. Antony List is a pro-life organization that
promotes politicians for elected office of
its own that favor pro-life issues, particularly
women. They wanted to in that particular election
highlight the fact that Steve Driehaus had
voted for Obamacare which they said and wanted
to say via a big billboard that he had voted
for funding abortion through that law.
But then the state government said
you can't do that.
That's right. A few weeks before the election,
Driehaus filed a complaint with the Ohio elections
commission based on some state laws they have
about false campaign ads and talking in terms
of false statements, that's the key phrase
there. He filed a complaint saying their billboards
violate the law. He also at the same time
convinced the billboard company never to publish
the ads so we had this action going on. The
Susan B. Anthony List said wow; this is really
chilling our First Amendment rights to speak
freely about an election. So they filed a
lawsuit in Federal Court which was originally
dismissed. So it went up to the 6th circuit
and now it's at the Supreme Court
of the United States.
So there are kind of two threads on this about
different aspects of the case but at the heart
of what the Supreme Court is going to hear
is this billboard case coming up through.
Now technically it's about a very specific
technical issue dealing with the courts but
you think it will go broader than that when
they actually discuss it.
Yes. Well the issue right now at the Supreme
Court level is whether Susan B. Anthony List
had the right to go into Federal Court and
complain about what the Ohio election commission
was up to. And they basically said -- the
Federal Courts basically said no on an issue
called standing. Now we've seen standing come
up before in some other big cases having to
do with the marriage amendment in California
for instance. So it basically has to do with
your right to bring a case to court.
Are you the right person to bring this challenge?
Exactly and so the Federal Courts in the 6th
circuit which included Ohio would call that
case one way and the circuit courts in seven other
circuits would call that another way and would
have allowed the case to proceed. That's what
Susan B. Anthony List is claiming now before
the Supreme Court. And the fact that the Supreme
Court just granted 'Cert' which means they
will hear the case that probably bodes well
for Susan B. Anthony's claim.
And it will also have in impact across the
country one way or the other as far as our
right to criticize officials in office for
what they're doing as elected officials.
This is a huge free speech right that actually
goes back to the founding and the right to
criticize your political officials. Students
of American history may remember something
called the 'Sedition Act' which Congress passed
early in the late 1790's that was really attempting
to suppress political criticism of the incumbents
in Congress and in the White House. It was
criticized heavily throughout that period
of time. It expired of its own accord after
a few years and has been criticized by historians
ever since. That is what we have in effect
here in Ohio and other states that have these
false statement campaign laws.
Now I can imagine some people would say you
know it seems like it would be a good thing
to have political ads say nothing but things
that are true. Of course it would have shut
down the entire Obamacare campaign last time
around but that's another story. But at issue
in this case is who gets to decide? On this
particular one it's arguable. If you're on
the pro-life side of things you say absolutely
there is abortion in Obamacare and the way
that they're fighting this, they want more
money to go toward abortion and to fund groups
such as Planned Parenthood. Folks on the other
side like I mentioned earlier up to and including
the president say oh no, there's no abortion
in this bill. A government official gets to
decide and depending on his or her leanings,
the truth could vary.
Yes. Truth in a political campaign includes
a lot of grey areas. You've seen any number
of campaign ads in your lifetime that say
this is true about candidate 'X' and candidate
'X' gets on TV and says that is absolutely false,
don't believe them. It all turns on the interpretation
of the facts that they're both arguing about.
That's what's in play here. The danger in
any Democracy is having the government or
government bureaucrat be the decider of what
is true and what if false. That is a dangerous
situation that goes back to what the
First Amendment is supposed to protect
in the first place.
One part of this case that I love -- the Susan
B. Anthony List is conservative. They are
interested in putting especially as you mentioned
pro-life conservative women into office.
No question where they are on the issues. Guess
what group wrote a brief -- a friend of the
court brief to send in, in support of the Susan
B. Anthony List? It would be the.....
The American Civil Liberties Union.
Which is not a conservative group!
Not known for it. But they are true free speech
advocates and on this issue they were solidly
behind Susan B. Anthony List. And actually
the Supreme Courts liberals are going to be
very much behind this case. You're not going
to see a split on conservative and liberal
on this if it ultimately gets to the substantive
issue: can a government prohibit false statements
in a political campaign.
Final question for you. We're in the beginning
stages now of the mid-term election season.
Will there be a decision on this in time for
this to have an impact on how these campaigns
are run coming up?
We will get a decision from the Supreme Court
on this technical issue about whether
Susan B. Anthony List can be in Federal Court. We
probably won't have a definitive ruling on
whether the Ohio law is unconstitutional
for another couple years.
Alright. Bruce thanks for your insights
very helpful.
You're welcome.
And thank you for watching. We love hearing
from you. You may always write to us at Mail@CitizenLink.com
We read all the notes that come in -- we can't
always respond to all of them but it's helpful
to us to get your questions, your comments
and your concerns. Remember its Mail@CitizenLink.com
We encourage you to pray for the Supreme Court.
They're in the middle of a session with a
lot of key issues for our freedoms right now.
Pray that they'll have wisdom and insight
as they consider these important cases and
make decisions that impact literally the rights
for all of us.
And remember Stand tall and Be Heard!
