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.

Comments

Seems fair

[im_thatoneguy]

I would think that using an official government organization Facebook page to promote a candidate would be a minor violation but a violation none the less.

As a resident in Thompson School District

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Bob Schaffer should have clearly done his post from his personal account and not the schools and I hope the judges ruling does not have larger negative effects on political speech in the USA. The bigger local issue is the current group of terrible board members that got elected in the last election seem to be much more interested in the "culture war" in the US than actually running the district efficiently. I really enjoy knowing that 300K of our tax dollars was spent so the school board could hire their buddy from Colorado Springs to be their own lawyer specifically to start a pissing match with the teacher union that from all evidence seems to have basically no point. It's not like this is some big city school district with an all powerful union. Actually pay and benefits in the district are below many of the other districts in the area.

Additionally Bob was not very good in Congress and was even tied to the Jack Abramoff corruption scandals; so I am not too sure how much his endorsement is worth anyway these days. The other big take away is that he is endorsing a parent who, by being a parent at his school, does not send their kids to the very district they are running to be on the board. . I know if I already decided to not use the services in my district for my kids, I would not go out of my way to be in charge of what happens to other people's kids.

Why not?

[Kohath]

Citizens United made a movie. People seem to want that to be called a campaign contribution and regulated or prohibited or punished. How is a movie different than a Facebook post?

Perhaps we should all just agree to some law or something to protect free expression?

Re:one big barrel of worms

[lucm]

Who exactly are you talking about? The guy who made the Facebook post is a Republican, the judge is a Democrat but his boss is a Republican, the candidate the guy supported is a Republican and her rival is a Democrat. Where exactly to the "neo-con" angle come in play in this situation?