judgesonmerit.org

Adding to Alabama’s already expensive and nasty Supreme Court election, a Virginia-based organization has begun a series of television advertisements promoting its preferred judicial candidate, spending over $1 million to broadcast ads praising candidate Greg Shaw.  The Press-Register reports that, in response to the organization’s ads, candidate Deborah Bell Paseur’s campaign wants Shaw to demand that the third-party organization either disclose its contributors or stop broadcasting the advertisements.

‘The whole thing we’re interested in is finding out where this money is coming from,’ [Paseur's campaign manager Marion] Steinfels said. ‘Who is funding these ads?’

Factcheck.org takes a closer look at the Alabama race, carefully scrutinizing the role of the third-party organization.  Gavel Grab is also following this development.

Last year, the same Virginia-based organization broadcast similar ads leading up to the most recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court race, urging voters to “thank” one of the candidates.   Ultimately, because the ads never explicitly advocated for the election of a specific candidate, and were considered “issue ads”, the group was able to avoid disclosing its contributors.

Judicial selection and campaign money: a bad mix.

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