Curb Your Enthusiasm

I’ve met Democratic Party Chair Mike Tate.  Mike was nice enough to speak to my Election Law clase and was candid, informative and entertaining.  I have to confess that I like the guy.

I appreciate that the boys and girls that do this kind of work (on my side as well) aren’t playing beanbag. As a consultant on my side told me, we can’t play nice when the other guys play nasty. I couldn’t argue with her. It’s a classic game of hawks and doves. To paraphrase Justice Scalia, if one side fights freestyle, the other cannot adhere to the Marquis of Queensbury Rules.

But the attacks on Mark Block as a “convicted criminal” or “criminal fundraiser” are another matter and may themselves have legal consequences.

The statements are false. Block was never convicted of a crime. He was never charged with a crime. The matter in which he and the Wilcox campaign were respondents was a civil action. It was not adjudicated on the merits but settled. The settlement did not amount to a finding of culpability on the part of Block who expressly denied any wrongdoing. He was not fined but agreed, as part of the settlement, to a civil forfeiture.

As a complaint filed by my friend Mike Dean (L ’85) on behalf of James Zeiler points out, Russ Feingold’s campaign agreed to a similar resolution (and paid $ 9000 in forfeitures) in response to allegations of legal violations in his 1998 re-election campaign.

Russ Feingold is, of course, not a convicted criminal or criminal fundraiser. Neither is Mark Block.

The irony is that the statement about Block may itself be a crime. Wis. Stat. sec. 12.05 makes it unlawful for any person to “knowingly make or publish, or cause to be made or published, a false representation pertaining to a candidate or referendum which is intended or tends to affect voting at an election.” Violations may result in a fine of not more than $1000, imprisonment of not more than six months or both.

There is, I think, a question on the constitutionality of the statute with cases considering similar statutes in other states going both ways. To be clear, moreover, the Zeiler petition to the Government Accountability Board is not a criminal complaint, but itself seeks only civil remedies. Criminal charges would have to be brought by a prosecutor.

Now I don’t think that Mike Tate should be criminally charged. Nor would I encourage Mark Block to sue him for defamation. He would have to show that Tate acted with knowledge of the falsity of his statement or in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Tate is not a lawyer and may not have understood the difference between criminal and civil and between compromise and adjudication. 

I do not expect political consultants to discover the value of civility.  A liberal friend who listened attended a WisPolitics lunch in Madison earlier this week told me that we are a likely to suffer from a hyperbole shortage by November. This is a war in which the deterrent effect of mutually assured destruction has largely broken down.

But I am still naive enough to wish for a little more care.

Cross posted in different form at Shark and Shepherd

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