Minnesota Judge Sustains Coalition for a Democratic Workplace Television Ads

[Earth Bound Misfit]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/minnesota-judge-sustains-coalition-democratic/story.aspx?guid=%7B5169E958-D495-406B-B1A0-F72B37056912%7D&dist=hppr

WASHINGTON, Aug 19, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- In a decisive blow to the Minnesota Democrat Farm Labor (DFL) Party's attempts to curtail free speech, on Monday a Minnesota judge dismissed the DFL Party's complaint against the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW). CDW's television ad said Al Franken supports a federal bill to permit labor unions to force themselves on workers without a secret ballot. The DFL claimed that statement was false. But after examining the DFL's evidence at a hearing, Judge Barbara L. Nielsen dismissed the case, ruling that "The statement that Mr. Franken wants to eliminate the secret ballot is not factually false."

In addition to explaining that the bill Franken supports explicitly curtails workers' existing rights to secret ballots, Judge Nielsen noted that respected sources from across the nation and the political spectrum had described the bill in the same way as the CDW's ad.

The rest of the article contains more right-wing rhetoric.:puke:

That's some creative "journalism"...What the judge ACTUALLY wrote in her decision:

"The burden is on the Complainant to put forward some evidence at the probable cause stage that the Respondents knew the statements in the advertisements were false or that they communicated the statements while subjectively believing they were probably false. There is nothing in the record to support such a finding. Instead, the evidence in the record demonstrates that the effect of the bill is of great (and highly partisan) debate. Many editorial boards, political commentators, and the House Minority Report have drawn the same conclusion as the Respondents regarding the bill's effect.


Repukelicans are drawing a lot of (negative) attention to this issue by attacking the card-check vs secret "Democratic" ballot election portion of this bill which, IMHO, is the LEAST important.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

1. The judge merely concludes that Minnesota law allows campaigns to mislead

all they want, so long as they don’t recklessly state a falsehood. Since there is at least one instance (a majority of people don’t want a secret ballot and want to unionize) where there is no secret ballot, it’s not technically false to say that it eliminates the ballot. It’s just incomplete and misleading to not state all of the facts.

From the Judge's statement:

"While the statement may be misleading by not explaining that workers will still be able to vote
secretly in other circumstances, it is not factually false. As such, it does not come within
the purview of Section 211B.06."