Litigation

FactCheck: Ads ?Mudslinging,? and Distorted

By Peter Hardin

FactCheck.org has branded “Mudfest 2010″  some of the most questionable — and false or misleading — advertising attacks on incumbent state justices launched in this year’s election season.

FactCheck.org is a nonpartisan group that examines campaign ads, and it is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

In its report, the group scrutinizes in detail attack ads from one competitive election, in Michigan, and two retention elections, in Illinois and Iowa, and delivers these conclusions:

MICHIGAN: A Democratic ad “falsely accuses” Justice Robert Young, a Republican, of ruling that “Michigan citizens cannot hold [corporations] accountable when they pollute our lakes or rivers.” That’s not the case, FactCheck.org states, because “any citizen directly affected by environmental harm can still sue.”

ILLINOIS: Justice Thomas Kilbride is portrayed as pro-criminal in an ad by the business-backed Illinois Civil Justice League, and he is claimed to hold the “worst public safety rating” on the court. But the ad is “based on a study using questionable methodology and funded by the group itself,” FactCheck.org says in an analysis entitled, “Cherry-Picking Season in Illinois.”

IOWA: In this heated battleground over a state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, an ad accuses three justices of  “being “liberal,” “out of control” and “ignoring the will of voters.” But hold on, says FactCheck.org, the decision was unanimous and was written by an appointee of a Republican governor, and moreover, “‘ignoring the will of voters’ is exactly what justices are called on to do.”

By the way, FactCheck.org notes, most polls have founds Iowans closely split on the issue.

You can view the ads at Justice at Stake’s Judicial Elections 2010 page.

Full post as published by The Gavel on October 29, 2010 (boomark / email).