“Steve Driehaus’s constituents saw the truth about his pro-abortion record and made their voices heard on Election Day,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Their conclusion — that Steve Driehaus voted for a bill allowing taxpayer funding of abortion — is backed by every major pro-life organization in the country along with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Congressional Research Service and other nonpartisan organizations. The SBA List will continue to defend its actions, the voters and the right to criticize our elected officials.”
This article first appeared online at POLITICO Pro on August 1, 2011.
Judge: Reform doesn’t fund abortion
By Kate Nocera
A federal judge in Ohio said Monday that the Affordable Care Act does not provide for taxpayer funding for abortion. The statement was the cornerstone of the judge’s ruling to allow a defamation lawsuit brought against the Susan B. Anthony List by a former congressman to move forward.
Former Ohio Representative Steve Driehaus sued the SBA List for defamation of character during the 2010 election cycle, when the anti-abortion group ran an ad campaign on the premise that Driehaus had voted for a bill “that includes taxpayer funding for abortion,” in reference to Driehaus’s vote in favor of the ACA.
Driehaus, an anti-abortion Democrat, had initially filed a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission over a billboard that said he’d voted for “taxpayer funding for abortion.” The OEC found probable cause that the statement was false, and the SBA List filed a complaint in federal court that its ads were based on the group’s own interpretation of the law. The billboard was taken down but radio ads and flyers against Driehaus continued, according to court documents. Driehaus then countersued SBA List for defamation.
SBA List is ready to go to trial, stands by its statements and said the ruling “chills free speech.”
“Steve Driehaus’s constituents saw the truth about his pro-abortion record and made their voices heard on Election Day,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Their conclusion — that Steve Driehaus voted for a bill allowing taxpayer funding of abortion — is backed by every major pro-life organization in the country along with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Congressional Research Service and other nonpartisan organizations. The SBA List will continue to defend its actions, the voters and the right to criticize our elected officials.”
Driehaus lost the election but Judge Timothy Black stated in a decision that the defamation lawsuit could move forward because “the express language of the PPACA does not provide for taxpayer funded abortion. That is a fact and it is clear on its face.” SBA List’s request for summary judgment on the case was denied.
“It is a very big deal when a court says you can move forward against the ‘malice’ standard,” said Paul DeMarco, Driehaus’s attoney. “This ruling allows us to go ahead with the next phase — discovery — where we believe we will find the SBA List either ignored the truth or purposely did not seek it out when making these claims.”
SBA List pushed back saying its statements could not be defamatory because they did not act in malice and the group made its own judgments on the health care law.
“In order to be defamatory, the speech must obviously be false and cause injury, but it must also be made with actual malice. That’s a legal term that means that the speaker either knew the speech was false and said it anyway, or the speaker recklessly disregarded finding out whether the speech was true or false. That plainly was not the case with the SBA List,” said the group’s attorney James Bopp. “They researched Obamacare themselves, and they also read the opinions of other groups that also concluded that Obamacare provided taxpayer funds for abortion services.
Yet this court found, in spite of that, and in spite of the fact that their speech is true or at least their protected opinion, that their speech might be defamatory. This ruling means that anybody criticizing a candidate is in danger of a defamation claim.”
Judge Black said there was enough evidence to conclude the SBA List’s language in the ads were conveying “facts” that were “intended to [educate] the voter” and “does not signal that the speaker is imparting an opinion.”
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