The Susan B. Anthony List has been spending millions of dollars targeting Democratic members of Congress who voted for Health Care Reform with claims that they voted to expand taxpayer-funded abortions.
It’s not true and Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio) got fed up with SBA lying about it so he filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission that the group was violating Ohio election law which makes it illegal to “post, publish, circulate, distribute, or otherwise disseminate a false statement concerning a candidate, either knowing the same to be false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
The Elections Commission agreed with Driehaus and so now, of course, SBA is suing … on the grounds that the Ohio laws preventing them from lying about candidates violate their free speech:
A national anti-abortion group blocked from putting up a billboard against a Democratic anti-abortion congressman from Ohio has asked a federal judge to overturn a state election law standing in its way.
The Susan B. Anthony List, based in Washington, D.C., filed the suit after the Ohio Election Commission ruled in favor of GOP-targeted, first-term Rep. Steve Driehaus. The commission said there was probable cause that the planned billboard includes false statements.
Driehaus was one of several anti-abortion Democrats in Congress whose votes sealed the passage of President Barack Obama’s health care law, which abortion opponents argue promotes taxpayer funded abortions. He has been the target of abortion opponents since the vote.
In its lawsuit, filed Monday, the anti-abortion group argues that the Ohio law barring false statements about a candidate’s voting record is vague and violates free speech. It also says the law is unconstitutional because it does not require the offended candidates to prove actual malice.
