Secretary of State Michele Reagan will no longer enforce a law designed to give targets of last-minute political “attack ads” time to respond.
The law says organizations that spend money on a race within 60 days of the election must send a copy of the ad to any named candidate within 24 hours. It's designed to ensure the candidate being attacked has some opportunity to respond.
But Tim Hogan from the Center for Law in the Public Interest said that's not Reagan’s call.
“If somebody wants to challenge the provisions and a court declares them unconstitutional, so be it. But that's the way the system works. We didn't elect Michele Reagan or anybody else in the executive branch to be judges,” Hogan said.
Reagan said the statute has outlived any usefulness it might have had.
“When this statute was first written there weren't such mediums as Twitter being widely used. There weren't mediums that were delivering news in an instant fashion,” Reagan said.
Challengers said changes to the provision would need a court ruling or legislative action.