fromtheinsideout said:
A question regarding the political ads if I may. While stations have certain obligations under federal election law regarding the ads they must carry from those seeking office, do those obligations carry over to third party ads as well, like ads bought by the parties' campaign committees (DCC/RCC) or those run by groups like the Americans for Tax Reform or SEIU or can a station refuse those since they aren't technically candidate ads paid for by the campaigns themselves?
Stations can and do reject political ads from 529s, and other non-candidate sources. It happens all the time, including in the Super Bowl.
In terms of the "political rate" (the lowest rates on a station within 60 days of a general election and within 45 days of a primary), that is only mandated for candidates for federal office, but commonly extended to political candidates of all types.
The First Amendment does not allow lying with malice aforethought. That seemed to be Ms. Dahlkemper's, and plenty of other candidates', gripe. It takes too long to litigate these things, so, while it's unlikely to be effective, about the only chance candidates have to remedy the damage done by attack ads that are not true is to pressure stations to reject them.
I make no statement regarding the veracity of any of the claims, but that's the issue: A candidate seeking to suppress ads that (at least from their own assessment) aren't true.
