On March 25, Prophet Walker, who had placed second in California’s top-two primary in June 2014 for Assemblymember, 64th district, sued the winner, Assemblyman Mike Gipson, for libel. See this story. The focus of the lawsuit is a campaign flyer produced by Gibson’s campaign during the final weeks of the general election campaign.
Until that piece of literature had appeared, Walker and Gipson were in a highly competitive race. Several leading figures in southern California’s entertainment and film business had been providing substantial help to Walker’s campaign.
The primary in this district had included four Democratic candidates, and no other candidates.
To be fair, Gipson did receive 51% of the vote in the 4-way primary.
Curiously, Walker’s campaign website is now offline, though Google did have a cached version from March 26 (yesterday)
Is mere truth a defense in a libel case in CA ???
See the landmark Fox’s Libel Act in England circa 1792 — AFTER the 1st Amdt was enacted.
i.e. ye olde *seditious libel* stuff got mostly wiped out — ending more of the DARK AGE stuff in the Brit regime.
The Fox Act text was put into a number of the State Constitutions along with 1st Amdt type language.