The Virginian Pilot is reporting that a special prosecutor in the Fliergate saga has been named.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Harvey Bryant said Friday he knows who ordered the controversial Election Day fliers that pictured Will Sessoms and Barack Obama and has turned the information over to a special prosecutor.
I’ve been hearing that Bryant was having difficulty finding a fellow CA to take the case, despite the evidence. (What that says about the connections of the power brokers in our region is a topic for another day.) But kudos to him for pursuing this and kudos to Portsmouth CA Earle Mobley for taking this on.
The fliers lacked the required disclaimer and while the investigation cannot overturn the election results, at least a fine will be assessed.
If the disclosure statement was left out by mistake or negligence, it is a civil violation with a fine up to $2,500. A criminal violation could mean up to a year in jail as well.
Anyone want to take a bet that the fine will be $100?
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
How do you go about prosecuting this case without risking a public backlash?
While this may have been a case of an informed person misleading the voters, what about a less informed voter that makes an erroneous statement of opinion on a blog?
Blogs have the potential to reach just as many people as the fliers got to. Is every citizen who leaves a comment on a blog going to be prosecuted?
Do you see where this leads? Is the only offense that the originator of the flier did not clearly identify himself? Will every citizen that prints up a flier (or makes a comment on a blog) to distribute be likewise prosecuted?
How do you avoid a public backlash and charges of favoritism if you do not enforce the law evenhandedly?
There’s no law against the other conduct you describe, Lil. Big difference.
Now you are predictably going to claim that if anyone is stupid enough to have changed their vote based on the flier, shame on them. They deserve the consequences.
Well, if Will Sessoms with $630,000 in his pocket and the mayor position at stake is stupid enough to believe that he has to stoop to this kind of illegal behavior to win, shame on him. He deserves the consequences.
Spotter,
OK, tell me why it is illegal for a person to print up fliers and hand them out at the polls (as long as they meet the restrictions for doing it) and the local parishioner printing up fliers and handing them out as people exit church?
You are jumping to conclusions. Automatically blaming Sessoms for the fliers is like blaming John Kerry for the Democratic supporters who punched holes in Republican “Get Out the Vote” vans’ tires up in Wisconsin back in 2004.
Here is a more pointed and timely comparison.
Blagojevich (Governor of Illinois) has been indicted for attempting to auction Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.
From what I have heard thus far, Obama and his transition team refused to engage in the auction.
Now I am going to engage in some speculation, and wait to see what turns up over the next few weeks. While the Obama transition team did not bid to get their preferred candidate the seat, they evidently were aware the bidding was going on. Blagojevich complained how all the transition team offered was appreciation. Why didn’t the transition team report this conduct (expectations of quid pro quo) to authorities?
LD – the law on candidates and campaigns are quite clear. The rules for campaigns don’t apply to individuals not connected with campaigns. I don’t know why you insist on trying to compare the two.
Please spend a little time on the SBE website. The information is all there.
Vivian,
With no thanks from you by not providing a link, I found the SBE website. It was like trying to sift through quicksand and I did not find an answer to question.
Let me get this straight. According to you, I can spend unlimited amounts of money on putting out whatever fliers I want in support of a candidate as long as I am not involved in the campaign?
Your posts leave something to be desired. Aragona wasn’t a flier precinct until I tried to compare this none flier precinct to the flier precincts. Then you claimed Aragona was a flier precinct. Except the next time you posted figures for us to examine you put Aragona in the none flier precincts again.
I’m just wondering how often the “facts” are going to shift to support your point of view?
The SBE link is in my sidebar. Always has been. All of the information on campaigns is included in the candidate’s section.
You have changed your question, LD. You mentioned a local parishoner handing out fliers outside of a church, and didn’t say anything about them being political fliers. Spending on behalf of a candidate requires disclosures, which is why you often see “Paid for and authorized by _______. Not connected with any candidate or campaign” on issue-oriented campaign lit.
As for the precincts – you need to refer back to my definitions, which are here. Do not confuse my calling “Flier Ticket” precincts as being the ONLY precincts where the fliers were distributed. Aragona was not in the group I defined as “Flier Ticket” precincts, but was in the group I defined as “Democratic Ticket” precincts. And yes, fliers were distributed there.
Vivian’s right. I think the law says that if your expenses go over a certain amount, you must have a disclaimer on your political material that it isn’t endorsed by the particular candidate. If your spending is below that amount, no disclaimer is needed.
Which is stupid, if you think about it.
Blogs and newspapers can write whatever they want. People can go on a tv show or radio program and say whatever they want. But if i print a flier and pass it out, and my printing costs are high, I’m under legal obligation to disclose who didn’t pay for it?
Lil,a Sessoms campaign consultant admitted he distributed the fliers, and a paid campaign worker said they were distributed at the Williams Mullen law firm during a scheduled training.
So there’s no doubt that they came from the Sessoms campaign, and they are obligated to put the disclosure on them.
Vivian,
I’m not changing the question. I thought it was evident I was talking about the parishioner handing out politically related material. I guess it could have been understood otherwise.
Brian Kirwin,
You stated:
“Blogs and newspapers can write whatever they want. People can go on a tv show or radio program and say whatever they want. But if i print a flier and pass it out, and my printing costs are high, I’m under legal obligation to disclose who didn’t pay for it?”
I think that statement does a better job of making my point then what I stated myself.
I think the low fine level for such an offense is appropriate.
Vivian,
I went back to the SBE website and still could not find the info. I hate to say that it is poorly designed, let me just state it seems to have been designed for voters. Candidates (or activists) seeking to figure out how to comply with the law might find the information they need in there somewhere, but I couldn’t find it.
But ignorance of the law is no excuse, right?
You know, LD, the funny thing is, you may not know the law, and yet the overwhelming majority of candidates campaigning in Virginia for local, state and federal offices–as well as the wide assortment of political action committees and interest groups that engage in electioneering–all manage to be completely compliant with their communications. This is the only illegal communication piece that I’m aware of in the entire state. And it’s telling that it happens to be essentially a lie targeted at low-information voters in Democratic precincts in order to create a false impression that Obama and Sessoms were somehow part of the same ticket.
Which is why it’s important to enforce the law vigorously, David. Because everyone in the business really does know better, it’s just no one ever takes credit for the dirty tricks. Which is why it’s important to enforce the law, and enforce it vigorously; we don’t need that sort of politics, and it’s a steep and slippery slope from here to fake mail pieces purported to be from Sessom’s reelection campaign that admit to and apologize for his (completely fictitious) membership in the Ku Klux Klan back in the 1970s.
Did you know you need a disclaimer on a campaign business card, but not on a 4′ x 8′ sign? How much sense does that make?
Did you know that if a campaign sends a mailpiece to less than 500 people, it doesn’t need a disclaimer? That’s the law.
Did you know campaign emails need a disclaimer?
“This is the only illegal communication piece that I’m aware of in the entire state.”
Then you aren’t looking very hard. I see many, many first time candidates for local office blast out emails with no disclaimer, create websites with no disclaimer, and one candidate for mayor in a pretty big city had color, glossy palm cards without a disclaimer (and it wasn’t Sessoms).
I’m not saying this to absolve anyone, but just to let you know that if a special prosecutor was appointed every time someone didn’t have a disclaimer, it would happen every election cycle.
silence dogood,
You stated:
“And it’s telling that it happens to be essentially a lie targeted at low-information voters…”
And who is to blame for these voters being so ill informed? If the Oberndorf campaign desired these votes so highly perhaps it should have done a better job of communicating with the voters there?
If nothing else, perhaps they should have been handing out fliers of their own, complete with disclaimers.
If Meyera was the “Democratic candidate” in a supposedly non-partisan election, then who is to blame that these Democratic leaning precincts voted for the other candidate?
Perhaps voters in these precincts were only motivated through frustration to vote for change. A vote for Meyera would not have involved any change.
I don’t know. You said you didn’t know enough to feel comfortable casting a ballot in this election. Perhaps we should blame you.