OK. So it was in England. And it was Parliament not Congress. But we can dream, can’t we?
According to a story in today’s Guardian, a former Labour minister was ejected from the Mother of Parliaments after two high court justices ruled he lied about his Liberal Democratic opponent during the recent general election.
The judgment is likely to have profound consequences for how future campaigns are waged in Britain. Be nice if it set a precedent to fix the ugly dishonest process known as democratic elections in the United States.
More below the fold.
Labour candidate Phil Woolas, who is now barred from seeking a parliamentary seat for three years, won his Oldham East (Manchester) seat by just 103 votes after falsely accusing his opponent, Elwyn Watkins, of "wooing" Islamic extremists. He also lied about whether Liberal Democrat Watkins would live in the Oldham East constituency. According to the Guardian story, the High Court judges decided that Woolas’s claims were pure fiction and that he had broken electoral law.
Woolas’s campaign team exploited racial tensions in Oldham, the scene of race riots in 2001. He published two election pamphlets with headlines such as "Lib Dem pact with the devil" and "Targeted: militant extremists go for Phil Woolas". Other "stories" in a newspaper-style leaflet included: "Lib Dems in mosque planning permission stitch-up" and "Straight talking Woolas too fair for militant Muslims."
Watkins complained that Woolas knowingly misled voters.
The specially convened election court upheld [Watkins’] arguments after it saw confidential emails between Woolas's team, which included the line: "If we don't get the white folk angry he’s [Woolas] gone."
In the first such decision for 99 years, Woolas (who is to seek a judicial review of the verdict) automatically loses his seat in the Commons and is barred for three years. The speaker will clarify byelection plans in the Commons on Monday.
Woolas was also suspended by the Labour party. In the Blair/Brown Labour governments he served as Minister for the Environment and later as Minister of State for Borders and Immigration and Minister of State for Treasury. Out of ministerial office, following the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition takeover, Woolas was appointed shadow Home Office minister by new Labour leader Ed Miliband. The appointment was denounced at the time as "bizarre" by the New Statesman on the grounds that Woolas had "run one of the most disgraceful election campaigns in recent memory." The point is that Woolas was no obscure back bencher but a fairly senior figure in the Labour Party.
The deputy leader Harriet Harman said it was "no part of Labour's politics to try to win elections by telling lies" and the party would not support any appeal.
Watkins brought his case under British law prohibiting false electioneering statements.
The case was brought under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act (1983) which makes it an offence for anyone to publish "any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate's personal character or conduct" to prevent them being elected "unless he can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing, and did believe, that statement to be true".
Meanwhile Miliband is putting as much distance between Labour and the disgraced Woolas as he can. According to Miliband:
[T]he right decision is to suspend him from the party and to say we are not going to fund his further legal action. I think reasonable people will think we have done the right thing....There is obviously rough and tumble in politics, but sometimes you go beyond rough and tumble. I think this is a salutary reminder to all politicians across the political spectrum about the importance of a clean fight.
I suppose we are so accustomed to the sleaze of American campaigns that it’s hard to believe that a democracy exists in which a demonstrably dishonest campaign could cost politicians their seats -- and their careers. Doesn’t happen often, but it’s good to know its possible.
It would be nice to think similar ethical and legal considerations could be brought to bear in American politics. Just think about the possibilities for improving public discourse and cleaning up campaign corruption if serial and blatantly dishonest politicians such as Michelle Malkin, Sarah Palin, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Karl Rove and the Swift Boat Veterans could be held to account for their lies. Let's face it, the whole arc of Republican campaigning since Nixon's team invented the "Southern Strategy" has been to "get the white folk angry," in Woolas's elegant phrase.
Wouldn’t it be great if the US Supreme Court could.... Oh that’s right. Well, never mind.