Complete Story
08/10/2016
Ohio taxpayers on hook for $1.4M for false-ad law
Ohio’s now invalidated state law that prohibited making false statements in political ads has cost taxpayers $1.4 million.
Without discussion, the bipartisan, quasi-legislative Ohio Controlling Board on Monday unanimously agreed to pay legal fees for the Susan B. Anthony List, a Washington-based anti-abortion-rights group, and the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, based in Cincinnati. Both sued the state to strike down the law.
The U.S. Supreme Court two years ago revived the constitutional challenge to the decades-old Ohio law after the Cincinnati-based U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals had dismissed the challenges. Based on the high court ruling, the lower court later declared the law to be an unconstitutional infringement on the groups’ free speech.
Phil Richter, executive director of the Ohio Elections Commission, said the law remains on the books but is unenforceable by the commission.
“We’ve had members who have expressed interest in seeing if we could be doing anything to bring it back in play,” he said. But he knows of no legislative efforts to rewrite the law that could comply with the court rulings.
The challenge stemmed from a 2010 congressional election in which the Susan B. Anthony List used a billboard to accuse then U.S. Rep. Stephen Driehaus, a Cincinnati Democrat, of supporting taxpayer-funded abortions through his support for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Ohio law at the time prohibited false statements in ads, mailers, Internet sites, or other campaign material that were made knowingly or recklessly without regard to falsity.
