Election Over, Now It's Time to Sue
After months of hard-hitting campaign advertising in many elections throughout the country, candidates now have time to focus on a new project.
Whether they won or lost, a number are now suing political opponents for defamation, reports the National Law Journal in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.).
North Carolina Democrat Kay Hagan, for instance, won a stunning victory at the polls, unseating her district’s longtime Republican U.S. senator, Elizabeth Dole. But yesterday Hagan filed a notice in Wake Superior Court that she intends to sue Dole for defamation. She contends that a television ad that accused her of having ties to an atheist political action committee called the Godless Americans went too far.
Whether plaintiffs prevail in such litigation, however, given the extensive protections granted to political speech, remains to be seen. The Charlotte Observer reports that Dole’s campaign dismissed the Hagan suit as a political gimmick.
Meanwhile, a Wisconsin appeals court ruled that a trial court judge had exceeded his authority in restraining a political advocacy group from continuing to run radio ads critical of Mark Radcliffe, a candidate in a hotly contested state legislative race. The ads were back on the radio Monday, just before the election, reports a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel blog post.
“Radcliffe may continue his defamation case in Circuit Court to try to get a ruling that declares the ads are false, but a court wouldn’t rule on that until after voters cast their ballots,” the blog article notes.
Says his lawyer, David Halbrooks: “We expect we will be able to prove all the statements are false in the ad.”
A representative of the defendant advocacy group, the Coalition for America’s Families, characterized the appellate ruling as a victory for free speech.
