On December 5, 2014, a Massachusetts PAC filed a federal lawsuit against a 1946 Massachusetts law that says, “No person shall make or publish, or cause to be made or published, any false statement in relation to any candidate for nomination or election to public office, which is designed to or tends to aid or to injure or defeat such candidate.” This law is in Mass. General Laws, chapter 56, section 42, part of the election code.
The case is Jobs First Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee v Coakley, 1:14cv-14338. It has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton. The Massachusetts law is similar to an Ohio law invalidated in September 2014 in U.S. District Court. That case was Susan B. Anthony List v Driehaus.
How many TYRANTS in Mass ??
— regardless of 19 Apr 1775 — Battles of Lexington and Concord —
Day 1 of the American Revolutionary War
The problem with laws like this is this one simple fact. Who decides what constitutes “false speech”?