Pritzker Friday On CNN.
“There ought to be a private right of action for anybody that’s dissuaded or told something that’s false, that’s the important thing. What they say to people, that’s fine, as long as what they’re doing isn’t deceptive. And we have laws against that. It’s fraud in our state and we’re going to prosecute people for that.” – Gov. JB Pritzker on CNN
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday put contempt for free speech on full display. The astonishing quote above is from a CNN interview where he was unequivocal that certain speech should be criminalized and the speaker sued when those in power deem the speech false.
CNN pressed him on the issue, giving him a chance to clarify, but he stuck to his position.
“You have a right to free speech, but you don’t have a right to lie,” he said. “You don’t have a right to use those lies to push people into situations in which they, frankly, are breaking the law or where they are unaware of what their full rights are. So, we need to make sure that people know what their rights are.” The CNN video is here and transcript here. Pritzker said much the same in an answer at the end of a separate press conference on Friday.
That’s preposterous as a general principle and completely at odds with established First Amendment law. Even falsehoods are protected speech – knowing falsehoods, too, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, subject only to narrow exceptions such as defamation. Those who opposed or supported masks to stop Covid had every right to voice their views, regardless of which was right. Hillary Clinton was legally free to claim Donald Trump was an “illegitimate” president, regardless of whether that was true. Joe Biden can say he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings, even if that’s demonstrably false. The list is endless.
That’s as the law must be. The alternative is authoritarianism. “The mere potential for the exercise of power [to censor what may be factually incorrect] casts a chill, a chill the First Amendment cannot permit if free speech, thought, and discourse are to remain a foundation of our freedom, Justice Kennedy wrote on behalf of the Supreme Court.
Today, it would be the U.S. Justice Department deciding what speech to prosecute and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul in Illinois. They’ve become notorious for politicized justice, and who knows who will be in charge next.
Read more here.
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