That's pretty shitty:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Larimar County Clerk Angela Myers (R) ordered that copies of the Tuesday edition of the Rocky Mountain Collegian, the student newspaper for Colorado State University, be removed from newsstands at the school's student center
The paper featured a front-page story about Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), who is locked in one of the closest Senate races in the country -- and therefore Myers said that they violated electioneering laws, according to the Rocky Mountain Collegian's own report on the controversy.
Myers cited a state law that said “no electioneering may take place within a 100-foot limit of any polling location."
"When you have a paper that has a candidate on the very front like it does, we will need that to be displayed outside the 100-foot limit," she said.
The headline for the online edition of the story was: "Sen. Udall visits Colorado State Monday." - TPM, 10/21/14
Of course there was blowback:
http://www.collegian.com/...
After receiving a cease and desist letter from Steven Zansberg, an attorney at Levine Sullivan Koch and Schultz, LLP, Rocky Mountain Student Media’s legal representation, Larimer County Clerk Angela Myers reversed her decision Tuesday afternoon and said the Collegian will be allowed to display newspapers in the racks at the entrance to the LSC.
Zansberg’s letter acknowledged that Myers threatened to confiscate copies of the October 21, 2014 edition from the Lory Student Center and requested that Myers refrain from instituting an “unconstitutionally overbroad reading of the applicable statute.”
In a follow-up interview with Myers, she said that in this case, the statute is is unclear.
“It’s the law that you’re not supposed to have electioneering materials in that area, and I am the enforcer of that,” Myers said.
Zansberg wrote that applying the term “electioneering” from Colorado statute 1-13-714 to encompass routine news coverage “would unquestionably render the statute unconsitutional, in violation of the First Amendment’s protection for The Freedom of Speech and Of the Press.”
“We take this issue very seriously, no matter candidate and issue,” Myers said.
Zansberg also referenced Citizens United v. Gessler, which prohibited Colorado’s Secretary of State from treating a documentary film about candidates running for office as electioneering communication in order to avoid an unconstitutionally overbroad construction of that statutory term.
“When a newspaper – whether it be The Collegian, The New York Times, or The Denver Post, all of whom have newsracks within 100 feet of the Lory Student Center polling location – cover a news story, including the appearance of any candidate running for office, or any measure that is on the ballot (e.g., personhood, a proposed casino in Arvada, or, in past elections, legalizing recreational marijuana), such news coverage plainly is not ‘campaigning for or against any candidate’ or ballot initiative,” Zansberg wrote.
Zansberg also noted that the polling location in question is merely a location for citizens who have already voted to drop off ballots that have already been filled out. - Rocky Mountain Collegian, 10/21/14
Seriously? The GOP is that scared of students voting that they'll resort to this? Click here to donate and get involved with Udall's campaign:
http://markudall.com/