For years, I have lamented how the Democratic party has embraced censorship and the criminalization of speech. I come from a liberal Democratic family in Chicago and the Democratic Party once championed free speech as the defining value of the party. Democratic politicians now lead calls for censorship to silence their opponents and corporate regulations to protect citizens from dangerous choices in reading material. The same concerns were raised this week after Washington Gov. Jay Inslee called for the criminalization of “lies” about election results. Inslee wants to convict people who raise election challenges or allegations. Such a law would threaten political speech and create a chilling effect for those who want to raise such concerns in contested elections.
Inslee made his comments as part of the Jan. 6th anniversary. It appears to follow Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s directive for Democrats to “preserve the narrative” of that day. According to the Seattle Times, Inslee declared that “it should not be legal in the state of Washington for elected officials or candidates for office to willfully lie about these election results.” He would make such comments a gross misdemeanor subject to incarceration.
Such a criminal law would be ripe for abuse and would create a chilling effect that would be positively glacial. We have seen other Democratic leaders use the criminal process in similarly reckless fashions.
This country has a long history of election fraud from Tammany Hall in New York to the Daley machine in Chicago. Raising doubts over such elections often forces greater public scrutiny and marshals resources to contest results. Indeed, Democratic lawyers like Marc Elias have challenged Republican victories as he and others denounced such GOP challenges as attacks on democracy.
-- Jonathan Turley, "Democratic Governor Calls For Criminalizing 'Lying' About Election Results" (JONATHANTURLEY.ORG).
