OLYMPIA — A sharply divided state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a law that bars political candidates from deliberately making false statements about their opponents violates the First Amendment right of free speech.
In a 5-4 decision, the high court affirmed a state Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the law. The measure was enacted by the Legislature in 1999, a year after a similar ban on false statements involving initiatives and other ballot measures was thrown out by the state Supreme Court.
State Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch, invoked the law in 2002 after his Green Party challenger, Marilou Rickert, distributed a flier that asserted Sheldon voted to shut down a state institution in his district. In fact, he voted against a budget that included closure of the Mission Creek youth camp, although critics said he didn’t do enough to support the facility.
He filed a complaint with the state Public Disclosure Commission, which investigated and imposed the maximum fine, $1,000. By then, Sheldon had easily won re-election. The commission action was upheld in Superior Court, but overturned by the appeals bench.
The Supreme Court majority said the new law “like its predecessor, is unconstitutional on its face.”
“The notion that the government, rather than the people, may be the final arbiter of truth in political debate is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment,” Justice James Johnson wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Charles Johnson, Richard Sanders and Susan Owens.
Chief Justice Gerry Alexander joined the majority as well, but in a separate concurrence. He wrote, “The majority goes too far in concluding that any government censorship of political speech would run afoul of the United States and Washington constitutions,” but agreed that the law was unconstitutional because it was overbroad.
The dissent called the majority decision “an invitation to lie with impunity.”
“The majority opinion advances the efforts of those who would turn political campaigns into contests of the best stratagems of lies and deceit, to the end that honest discourse and honest candidates are lost in the maelstrom,” Justice Barbara Madsen wrote in the dissent, joined by Justices Tom Chambers, Mary Fairhurst and Bobbe Bridge.
PDC spokeswoman Lori Anderson said the commission next meets on Oct. 25, at which point they will discuss options, including whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The PDC can also ask the state Supreme Court to reconsider its decision, said Janelle Guthrie, spokeswoman for the state attorney general’s office, which represented the PDC in the case.
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