Television stations asked to pull pro-Kelly Supreme Court ads featuring a rape victim's case
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An attorney for Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz's campaign is demanding television stations remove ads that were paid for by political groups backing her opponent Daniel Kelly featuring a rape case Protasiewicz presided over.
The demand came after Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a story Thursday about the victim at the center of the case who said she had refused to participate in the ads and called them traumatizing and inaccurate.
“It immediately took my breath away,” the woman told the Journal Sentinel after seeing the ads for the first time. “To see it in action. I wondered if there was any thought put into the human beings behind the cases. I am a human being who wants peace.”
Milwaukee attorney Matthew O'Neill with Fox, O'Neill & Shannon sent letters to television stations across the state Thursday afternoon warning that airing false or misleading ads could jeopardize station licenses.
"Your publishing of defamatory content is particularly inappropriate given that, unlike candidates, independent political organizations like WMC and Fair Courts America do not have a right to command the use of broadcast facilities," O'Neill's letter said. "Because you need not air this ad, you bear particular responsibility for its content when you choose to do so."
Spokespeople for WMC and Fair Courts did not respond to comment Thursday. Both groups stood by the ads, telling the Journal Sentinel this week they contained "factually accurate and publicly available information" and informed voters about the judicial record of Protasiewicz, who is a Milwaukee County circuit judge.
The groups back Kelly in Tuesday's election for a vacancy on the Supreme Court. The race has drawn national attention and record spending because it will determine the ideological balance of the court that could decide cases tied to voting rules in the battleground state, abortion access and voting maps.
This is not the first time WMC has been criticized over an ad in a judicial race. In 2018, the WMC Issues Mobilization Council aired an ad criticizing Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet's sentencing in a sexual assault case. The family involved in the case called for the ad to be taken down, saying it identified two child victims of attempted sexual assault.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: TV stations asked to pull pro-Kelly ad featuring rape victim case
