Reality Check: Why Are Candidates Allowed To Lie?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - Candidates and outside groups are spending nearly $4 billion this election cycle, most of it on TV ads.
And even though you'll hear candidates say, "I approve this message," it doesn't mean the ad is true.
Candidates can and do mislead, distort, and exaggerate. Not even an ad for laundry detergent can get away with that.
Political candidates are treated differently than commercial products for two big reasons: the First Amendment and federal law.
Minnesota is one of very few states with laws against false political advertising, but candidates still have wide latitude.
Here's what the law says:
"A person is guilty of a gross misdemeanor who intentionally participates in the preparation, dissemination, or broadcast of paid political advertising or campaign material with respect to the personal or political character or acts of a candidate, or with respect to the effect of a ballot question, that is designed or tends to elect, injure, promote, or defeat a candidate for nomination or election to a public office or to promote or defeat a ballot question, that is false, and that the person knows is false or communicates to others with reckless disregard of whether it is false."
Candidates are also protected by the First Amendment right to free speech.
"Candidates don't run into legal problems because of the wide berth given to free speech during campaigns," said Larry Jacobs, a professor at the Humphrey School of Public Policy. " We just don't want to have the government coming in and saying to a candidate, 'You can't say that.'"
U.S. courts are extremely reluctant to rule against false political ads.
A federal judge in September found an Ohio law unconstitutional.
What was the law? It banned candidates from lying.
Here are some of the sources we used for this Reality Check:
Minnesota False Campaign Ad Law
Center for Responsive Politics
FactCheck.Org: "There Oughta Be A Law-- Or, Maybe Not"
