The Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life PAC, recently tried to place an ad on four billboards stating that Ohio Representative Steve Driehaus voted for federally funded abortion when he voted for Obamacare.
Driehaus didn’t like that and sent out his lawyers to silence them. The lawyers did their thug lawyers things and brought suit against the SBA to the Ohio Elections Commission and convinced the billboard company not to run the ads while the case is pending.
The Commission inexplicably accepted the case. The SBA List says the commision is squelching the group’s free speech rights.
Can’t we all agree that Obamacare is intended to fund abortion. Can’t we all agree on that? HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius even admitted it. The text of the law says it. The one Democrat from Stupak’s supposed cadre of pro-life Democrats that actually voted against Obamacare Dan Lipinski said: “the executive order probably would not stand [in court] and even if it did stand, it only covered part of the abortion funding—the direct funding of abortion [at Community Health Centers], not the fees for [subsidized] health plans.”
But the SBA List isn’t allowed to state the truth, isn’t allowed to say what the HHS Secretary herself said.
Remember the recent kerfuffle concerning the funding to states for plans that included funding for abortion. The HHS was forced to actually issue a rule directly prohibiting states from funding abortions for those in the federally funded “high-risk pool” program.
Doesn’t that mean that Obamacare as passed did fund abortions? But facts don’t matter when it comes to politics. And it seems free speech doesn’t matter when it comes to politics either.
The Weekly Standard reports:
National Democrats have given up on Ohio Representative Steve Driehaus’s reelection campaign, but the race took an interesting turn today when the Ohio Elections Commission agreed to allow Driehaus’s case against a pro-life group, the Susan B. Anthony List, to proceed.
A three-member panel of the commission ruled that there was “probable cause” to believe that the SBA List is falsely trying to claim in an ad that Driehaus “voted for taxpayer-funded abortion” in the national health care law. The panel’s vote was two-to-one, with a Republican member voting against Driehaus and a Democratic member and an independent member voting in Driehaus’s favor. The independent member, Harvey Shapiro, had to recuse himself from a 2006 gay marriage elections case because he had donated $1,000 to the campaign against a gay marriage ban. The case will be heard by the seven-member Ohio Elections Commission, which is comprised of three Democrats, three Republicans, and the independent Shapiro. “A criminal conviction for making false campaign statements is punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a fine of up to $5,000,” Cincinnati.com reports.
Guess when they meet again to decide? Four days before the election. Convenient, huh?
This is outrageous and is clearly the silencing of free speech.
The only good news to come out of that district is the the Democratic Party has pulled its party money from the race which could spell doom for Driehaus. But if this works in this district expect it to be copies elsewhere and expect to see efforts in every election to silence pro-lifers everywhere.
