Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If some famous person endorsing a presidential candidate has value then so to does you recommending a movie to a friend. There is no threshold for value only scale. Every positive or negative valuation exchanged would then have value theoretically creating taxable events.
"Nice car" -> you just increased the value of his car.
"Your lawn needs mowing" -> decreased the value of the house.
"You look good today." -> contributed to their self worth. Equivalent to time with a therapist.
Speech must always remain free. And not a value transfer.
"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.
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.
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.
Notice that the judge only had a broblem with the post on the school page.
Schaffer posted on behalf of the school, a government entity, a link to an article about a political candidate. The post was non-partisan, and factual and probably would not be an issue. He then shared that post in a completely partisan manner where he endorsed the candidate. Because he shared the post there is a link from the government post to the endorsement. Had he just created a new post on his page rather than sharing the original post there would be not problem. Schaffer knew what he was doing. Schaffer is a pretty smart man but not smart enough.
Don't worry AC. You've got Soros pumping in the same amounts of money all over the place.
Om, nomnomnom...
I think you missed the main point. The problem is a government entity, the school, endorsing a candidate. The same person who made the school post shared that post along with an endorsement. Every time anyone sees the school post they will also see the endorsement. He could have placed a separate post on his page and there would be no problem. Endorsements are very valuable. A government agency is not allowed to contribute anything to a political campaign.
where the threshold falls where the guarantee of freedom of speech for one person crosses
Government entities do not have free speech.
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?
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?
lucm, indeed.
"Citizens United", the ruling that defined corporations as people with the same free speech rights.
Citizens United did no such thing. The way the first amendment is written it says nothing about who freedom of speech applies to. It's written as a restriction on the federal government. Weather a Corporation is a person, citizen, or inadimate object the federal government is cannot restrict its speech.
Retards like you who think the first amendment shouldn't apply to corporations, I hope you enjoy a future where the government now controls what the media can say since freedom of the press won't apply anymore. Newspapers, television networks, Internet service providers, etc... Are all corporations.
Charter schools are almost always legally considered governmental entities, just ones that are given a degree of organizational autonomy. Here is what this school's website says,
I.e. It's a public school that operates as part of a public school district.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I think we are all missing the Earth-shattering first-ever event here:
A judge in a court in the US has decided that something posted on Facebook, has value !
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
A poster would be a better analogy. There's a difference between putting up a poster endorsing a candidate in your front garden and on the front of the school. I on case, it's simply the individual endorsing the candidate, in the other it's implicitly the school's endorsement. I'd say that canvasing would count the same way. I wouldn't have a problem with the principle, off school property, talking to voters and asking them to support the candidate of his choice. I would, if he did so wearing a badge saying 'Principle of Liberty Common School', or if his endorsements started with 'Well, as Principle of Liberty Common School, I think that...' He can endorse whoever he wants, but he can't use his position as an appeal to authority when he does so and he can't do it using school resources.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What's the difference between a "personal" Facebook account and an "official" one? Fuck all.
The distinction between individual actions and the actions of "legal entities" is part of the foundation of Western law. It what makes it fraudulent for a sheriff to have the jail road gang do landscaping on his personal house or for a candidate to buy himself a boat with campaign funds. It's what keeps an individual county clerk from imposing her personal religious views on the entire county.
Publicly funded organizations may be composed of politically active individuals, but the organizations are supposed to be apolitical. In many places, politicians aren't even supposed to use their government phones for campaign calls. Citizens United does not apply to NASA, the EPA, the CIA, or the Fort Collins school district.
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.
I think you missed the main point. The problem is a government entity, the school, endorsing a candidate.
A public school would be a government entity. A charter school may be a private entity, depending on the state. In Colorado, it is publicly funded, but it is an entity founded and operated privately. Whether a charter school's endorsement of a candidate constitutes a government endorsement is highly debatable. My opinion is that it does not.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
A school thet is 90% funded publicly and uses both US and Colorado flag on their home page is acting like a government entity.
Here is their description of a Charter School;
A charter school is a public school operating within a public school district. A contract with the local board of education allows a charter school to operate free from specified district policies and state regulations thereby allowing more flexible and innovative ways of educating children.
A " public school operating within a public school district" funded by the government sounds pretty much like a government entity to me.
Except unions have the right to endorse and support political candidates, and government bodies (in this case a school) do not. This would be like if your municipality's treasury department endorsed a candidate.
Rawr