[EL] Candidate responsibility for others' actions

[J.H. Snider]

A related issue is the enforcement of ordinances with respect to the placement of campaign signs.  If an ordinance isn't enforced (or is unenforceable in a timely way), it is irrelevant whether a candidate or a candidate's supporters violate the ordinance.  For example, immediately prior to an election, key parts of the campaign sign ordinance are not enforced in the county in which I live: Anne Arundel County, Maryland.  Related ordinances, such as the placement of signs for real estate open houses on public land on the corner of nearby streets, also appear not to be aggressively enforced.  Therefore, I'd suggest expanding your inquiry into campaign sign ordinances to include enforcement questions.

Last January the county executive where I live was forced by a judge to resign in part because he had his security detail place some campaign signs while they were driving him around the county.  During the trial, it came out that other county executives had used their security detail and police cars to ferry around their campaign signs.  The difference was that the police cars were only used to ferry around the signs; the security detail didn't actually plant the signs, although they did open the vehicle trunks and hand the signs out to campaign supporters at campaign events.   This included a former county executive who campaigned statewide for higher office.  I imagine that at least some of the signs were placed illegally on public land near intersections, etc. (major public intersections near four-way stoplights are often jam packed with campaign signs shortly before elections), but this issue wasn't raised in the trial.  The issue that did the county executive in in the court of public opinion was having his security detail ferry him around to an inappropriate and gross sexual liaison (the county executive was unmarried), but that issue was thrown out by the judge.

Last January, I wrote a related op-ed<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-leopold-misconduct-20130129,0,1632797,print.story> in the Baltimore Sun, in which I argued it was inappropriate for a judge to jail a sitting county executive and disbar him for running for public office for five years based on the judge's interpretation of mere common law.   The county executive was the senior Republican office holder in Maryland as well as a moderate (e.g., liberal on social issues), which positioned him to be the leading Republican contender for governor in the next gubernatorial election.   The state prosecutor who brought the case was appointed by the Democratic governor.  I would be curious to know what others think about the desirability of granting judges such discretion to convict sitting elected officials.  I can think of dozens of politicians who have done much worse but have not had a judge both remove them from office and disbar them from running for future office.  I do not wish to defend the county executive's actions, just seek a better understanding of the proper role of the judiciary in ruling on such political questions.

--J.H. ("Jim") Snider, Ph.D.
President of iSolon.org<http://isolon.net/> and 2012-2013 Non-residential Fellow at Harvard University's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics<http://www.ethics.harvard.edu/the-center/mission>


From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Scarberry, Mark
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2013 8:13 PM
To: law-election at UCI.edu
Subject: [EL] Candidate responsibility for others' actions

For some reason I'm blanking on an issue. Certainly there are general arguments that can be brought to bear on whether a person can be held liable for the actions of others whom they don't control, but I think there must be some specific election law authority on the following question:

May a candidate be fined or otherwise sanctioned for independent actions taken by the candidate's supporters, such as putting up signs in prohibited places or in prohibited ways? (For example, supporters may affix campaign stickers to traffic signs or post campaign signs on utility poles in violation of local ordinances.)

This must have come up in the context of political action committees that fail to register appropriately or that take contributions in excess of legal limits. I don't think a candidate can be held responsible for those actions. We also know that candidates are neither expected to limit nor required to try to limit non-coordinated independent expenditures.

But right now I'm particularly interested in local ordinances with respect to placement of signs.

Mark

Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
Malibu, CA 90263
(310)506-4667

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