[EL] Susan B. Anthony case

[Edward Still]

The opinion says, "The [billboard] advertising company ... refused to
display that message, however after Driehaus' counsel threatened legal
action."

Does anyone have a copy of the letter?

Edward Still
Edward Still Law Firm LLC
130 Wildwood Parkway STE 108-304
Birmingham AL 35209
205-320-2882
still at votelaw.com
www.votelaw.com/blog
www.edwardstill.com
www.linkedin.com/in/edwardstill <http://www.linkedin.com/edwardstill>




On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

>    Analysis: #SCOTUS Unanimously Reverses in Susan B. Anthony Case
>   Posted on June 16, 2014 7:09 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=62377> by
> Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> As I had predicted <http://t.co/rH7Cer0sNP>, the Supreme Court has
> unanimously reversed the Sixth Circuit in the Susan B. Anthony case
> <http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-193_omq2.pdf> involving
> false campaign speech.
>
> I have now had a chance to read the short (18 page) unanimous opinion by
> Justice Thomas. As I expected in a post entitled “No, the Supreme Court
> Probably Won’t Address the Right to Lie in Campaigns Tomorrow,”
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=60708> the Court did not reach the merits
> of the constitutionality of Ohio’s law, which imposes some penalties on
> false campaign speech. the Court held only that Susan B. Anthony’s case
> against constitutionality can go forward, even though the complaint against
> it had been dropped. (Actually, the Court didn’t even decide that the case
> necessarily goes forward; the Court ordered the case back to the lower
> courts where further questions about whether the lower courts can hear the
> case may be considered).
>
> This is the right result here: as I’ve written, getting a probable cause
> determination against someone at the Ohio Elections Commission is a real
> injury which has serious political consequences.
>
> As for the larger significance of the case: the case may well make it
> marginally easier for plaintiffs to bring suit against claims that federal
> courts don’t have jurisdiction to hear a case (see Josh Blackman’s post here
>
> <http://joshblackman.com/blog/2014/06/16/ripeness-and-standing-boil-down-to-the-same-question/>on
> the conflation of standing and ripeness). Maybe it took a case against a
> conservative group to get the conservative Justices on board with this
> correct result to make it easier to sue.
>
> As far as the underlying constitutionality of false campaign speech laws, *Susan
> B. Anthony* says little. The closest Justice Thomas for the Court comes
> to the merits is this statement on the nature of the group’s injury:
>
> The burdens that Commission proceedings can impose on electoral speech are
> of particular concern here. As the Ohio Attorney General himself notes, the
> “practical effect” of the Ohio false statement scheme is “to permit a
> private complainant . . . to gain a campaign advantage without ever having
> to prove the falsity of a statement.” DeWine Brief 7. “[C]omplainants may
> time their submissions to achieve maximum disruption of their political
> opponents while calculating that an ultimate decision on the merits will be
> deferred until after the relevant election.” Id., at 14–15. Moreover, the
> target of a false statement complaint may be forced to divert significant
> time and resources to hire legal counsel and respond to discovery requests
> in the crucial days leading up to an election.And where, as here, a
> Commission panel issues a preelection probable-cause finding, “such a
> determination itself may be viewed [by the electorate] as a sanction by the
> State.” Id., at 13.
> Although the threat of Commission proceedings is a substantial one, we
> need not decide whether that threat standing alone gives rise to an Article
> III injury. The burdensome Commission proceedings here are backed by the
> additional threat of criminal prosecution. We conclude that the combination
> of those two threats suffices to create an Article III injury under the
> circumstances of this case.
>
> In my article, A Constitutional Right to Lie in Campaigns and Elections?
> <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2151618>, I have
> suggested that laws like Ohio’s establishing “truth commissions” (which
> Justice Scalia at oral argument sarcastically referred to as “ministries of
> truth”) with criminal penalties for lying in campaigns could well be
> unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s recent *U.S. v. Alvarez* case
> <http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-210> and other
> precedent.  Today’s *Susan B. Anth**ony* case does not do much on the
> merits of the question, but it marginally reenforces the idea that the
> Supreme Court could eventually strike laws like this down.
>
> Stay tuned over the next few years.
>
> [This post has been updated.]
>  [image: Share]
> <http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D62377&title=Analysis%3A%20%23SCOTUS%20Unanimously%20Reverses%20in%20Susan%20B.%20Anthony%20Case&description=%20Election%20Law%20Blog%20-%20Rick%20Hasen%27s%20blog%20>
>   This entry was posted in campaigns <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,
> Supreme Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29> by Rick Hasen
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>. Bookmark the permalink
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=62377>.
>  On 6/16/14, 7:10 AM, Rick Hasen wrote:
>
>   Breaking News: #SCOTUS Unanimously Reverses in Susan B. Anthony Case
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=62377>
>  Posted on June 16, 2014 7:09 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=62377> by Rick
> Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> As I had predicted <http://t.co/rH7Cer0sNP>, the Supreme Court has
> unanimously reversed the Sixth Circuit in the Susan B. Anthony case
> <http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-193_omq2.pdf> involving
> false campaign speech.
>
> [This post will be updated with analysis after I read the opinion.]
>  [image: Share]
> <http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D62377&title=Breaking%20News%3A%20%23SCOTUS%20Unanimously%20Reverses%20in%20Susan%20B.%20Anthony%20Case&description=>
>    Posted in campaigns <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, Supreme Court
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
>
>   --
> Rick Hasen
> Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
> UC Irvine School of Law
> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
> Irvine, CA 92697-8000949.824.3072 - office949.824.0495 - faxrhasen at law.uci.eduhttp://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/http://electionlawblog.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing listLaw-election at department-lists.uci.eduhttp://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
>
> --
> Rick Hasen
> Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
> UC Irvine School of Law
> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
> Irvine, CA 92697-8000949.824.3072 - office949.824.0495 - faxrhasen at law.uci.eduhttp://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/http://electionlawblog.org
>
>
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