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

Re:one big barrel of worms

[Trepidity]

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.

Re:one big barrel of worms

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

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.

Re:Would this also apply if shared by word of mout

[jklovanc]

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.

Re:Citizens United

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:one big barrel of worms

[PolygamousRanchKid]

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 !