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Judge: School's Facebook Post is a Campaign Contribution (coloradoan.com)
schwit1 writes: A Colorado judge has ruled that a Facebook post by Liberty Common School amounts to an illegal campaign contribution to a Thompson School District board candidate. In August, the Fort Collins charter school shared with its Facebook followers a newspaper article about a parent of a student running for a board seat in the neighboring school district. Liberty Common's principal, former Colorado Congressman Bob Schaffer, then shared the post and called candidate Tomi Grundvig an "excellent education leader" who would provide "sensible stewardship" of Thompson.
The campaign manager for Grundvig's rival filed a complaint, and it had to be settled by the courts. Administrative law judge Matthew E. Norwood called the violation "minor," and ruled that "no government money of any significant amount was spent to make the contribution." He also focused on the post to the school's specific page, not Schaffer's personal page. "The school's action was the giving of a thing of value to the candidate, namely favorable publicity," Norwood wrote.
The campaign manager for Grundvig's rival filed a complaint, and it had to be settled by the courts. Administrative law judge Matthew E. Norwood called the violation "minor," and ruled that "no government money of any significant amount was spent to make the contribution." He also focused on the post to the school's specific page, not Schaffer's personal page. "The school's action was the giving of a thing of value to the candidate, namely favorable publicity," Norwood wrote.
The court seems to be saying that there's no problem with Bob Schaffer's personal speech, so it doesn't seem like a free-speech problem to me. The focus was on whether the school, a governmental entity, should in its official capacity make comments for or against a candidate. Governmental entities don't really have free-speech rights.
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"So when everyone in the US posts for or against a US presidential candidate every single one of the posts is a campaign contribution under this ruling."
No, because the personal opinions of individuals on their private facebook pages mean fuck all. It's only because the principal used the school's official facebook account to praise the candidate that this amounted to anything at all. And even then the guy's rival had to kick a shit up to have it even looked at.
If that same principal used his own personal facebook page to say the exact same thing then absolutely nothing would have happened - and if the rival still tried to push it into court at that point, the judge would have laughed him out of the courtroom.
Again, it is ONLY because the praise was spread via an official ORGANIZATIONS facebook page that anything (And it is considered minor by the judge) happened.
Meanwhile in the real world, Koch Brothers are set to spend $889 million to secure elections for their choice of candidates:
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-koch-brothers-political-network-planning-889-million-of-spending-in-2016-2015-1?op=1
And this is the same Brothers who require their employees attend Political camps and hits them with endless letters warning of layoffs if their opposition candidate is elected.
"Citizens United", the ruling that defined corporations as people with the same free speech rights. Yet a school isn't a person, even if its a corporation?
Is saying "Fred would make a good Principle" the same as "Vote for Fred over Bob"? It doesn't even make the claim he's the best candidate, or even just a better candidate than the other guy!
No, he did this under the auspices of Thompson school. Had he done it on his own, it would have been fine. However, when you have a board that is currently GOP controlled and they allow for postings by a GOP for another GOP, that is campaign contribution.
BTW, normallly, Thompson is NOT controlled by the GOP. THis is an unusual situation. The kock brothers have spent BIG $ in Colorado targeting school boards here and are then running around trying to destroy the public schools.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
> So speech is money and money is speech now? How is this at all consistent with free speech?
You either didn't read the summary or are too stupid to understand a very reasonable ruling. You're part of the stupid people problem, either way.
No, people who are speaking as representatives of the government can't use their position in the government to expand the reach of their political speech. That's why it's one thing when (for example) a non-government group like Citizens United wants to make a documentary talking about the pros and cons of a politician ... but it's different when a government employee uses the government's communication channels (say, the "official" output of the school board, online) to do the same thing.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
If that same principal used his own personal facebook page to say the exact same thing then absolutely nothing would have happened
If? According to the summary, the principal did post it to his personal Facebook page, and the judge explicitly said that doing so was fine.