Editor's note: This opinion article was originally published at Wirepoints.org
Anything political said or written maliciously that exposes somebody to “contempt, ridicule or obloquy” would be criminalized, along with lots of other speech, under a new bill pending in the Illinois General Assembly.
So, let’s set the appropriate tone for this column at the outset: Contempt, ridicule and obloquy should be heaped on the sponsor of this bill and anybody with a similar frame of mind. In the massive assault on free speech being waged by today’s left, few things are as terrifying and flat out absurd as this bill.
It’s the Truth in Politics Act, HB 5850, sponsored by Denise Wang Stoneback, D-Skokie.
“Misinformation has distorted people’s views about consequential issues in politics,” the bill’s findings say, so it provides for a range of new speech crimes to be enforced.
Anybody could be looking at a criminal prosecution under the bill if they knowingly post, publish, circulate, distribute or otherwise disseminate a false or misleading statement about a candidate that was designed to elect or defeat a candidate.
Basically, in other words, a “misleading statement” knowingly made or distributed in any manner to affect any vote would be a violation.
But “misleading statement” is defined only as “a statement that is only partially true or a statement that distorts a true statement.”
That could mean anything, and who would decide what’s false or misleading? That would get left to a court to sort out.
More importantly, does anybody doubt for a minute that many politicians and their campaign operatives peddle false and misleading information routinely? Only somebody who knows nothing about Joe Biden and Donald Trump, for starters. And how about JB Pritzker? Here’s our long list of his whoppers and deceptions. Candidates like them, their campaign people and anybody distributing their messages would be in court for the rest of their lives if their false or misleading statements are criminalized.
The bill also singles out some particular forms of speech for criminalization.
For example, the bill would criminalize making a false or misleading statement concerning the voting record of a candidate or public official. Similarly, it says no person shall knowingly or recklessly make a false or misleading statement about a candidate’s stance on an issue to affect the outcome of a campaign for political office.
Those matters are particularly subject to interpretation and honest differences of opinion. Sorting out what claims are false or misleading would be utterly futile.
Another matter singled out in the bill is a prohibition against making a false or misleading statement concerning the formal schooling or training completed or attempted by a candidate.
Suppose I were to say, “The sponsor of this bill never was never taught a damn thing about the First Amendment.” Apparently, I’d be in violation of her bill if she could show that I knew she passed classes covering that.
In that connection, the whole bill is indeed doomed under the First Amendment. No U.S. Supreme Court, especially today’s U.S. Supreme Court, would let the bill stand.
The bill does contain a weird exception, but one that makes ironic sense. It says, “A statement published or sponsored by a person against himself or herself is not a violation of this Section.”
In other words, it wouldn’t be a crime under the bill if politicians make fools of themselves, as, for example, Stoneback has with this bill. That was a wise inclusion.
The bill is not significant because it might pass and be enforced. Aside from it being unconstitutional, Stoneback lost her primary, so, mercifully, we should be done with her after this legislative session.
But she’s probably right when she told WIFR that many people would support it. There’s no shortage on the left of those who will trample freedom of speech by attempting to censor their politicized view of misinformation. “We still have much more to do,” she said about this. Indeed. They won’t stop.
The bill is significant, however, for that reason. It’s yet another illustration of the total war now being waged against free speech.
Law Professor Jonathan Turley, among America’s best voices for free speech, described that war in his most recent column on Wednesday. The current front in the war is Twitter, he says. “The campaign against Twitter now involves the full allied forces of the anti-free speech movement,” Turley wrote: “the government, corporations, Democratic politicians, the media, and, of course, celebrities.”
“It is total war in the beltway but [Elon] Musk has yet to fully deploy his greatest weapon: free speech,” says Turley.
Spot on. That’s the greatest weapon for all of us: free speech.