Cardin Promotes Campaign-Tactics Legislation

When Republicans distributed fliers in November suggesting that prominent Maryland Democrats were supporting the GOP's Michael S. Steele for U.S. Senate, Democratic candidate Benjamin L. Cardin could do little more than denounce the tactic.

When Democratic leaders asked the Justice Department to investigate the Prince George's County mailings, they were told no federal laws applied.

Seven months after defeating Steele, Sen. Cardin presided yesterday over a congressional hearing in support of legislation to make misleading campaign tactics a federal crime.

" 'Misleading' is being kind to it," Cardin said as he opened a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the bill to punish deceptive election practices. "It was an effort to confuse minority voters in the largest jurisdiction in Maryland."

He called the fliers the "poll tax of our time," referring to the long-illegal practice of charging people to vote, aimed at keeping blacks from voting. Cardin said the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2007 is designed to "put political parties and candidates on notice."

The legislation, introduced last year by Democratic Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.). would make it a federal crime to distribute campaign literature that makes false claims about endorsements.

It calls for penalties of up to $100,000 and five years in prison for anyone convicted of knowingly communicating false information on the "time, place and manner" of elections, voter eligibility and rules, a candidate's party affiliation and endorsements. Supporters say the bill would be an extension of the Voting Rights Act, passed 42 years ago to protect voters from intimidation. A companion bill has passed the House Judiciary Committee.

Democrats yesterday described the current effort as nonpartisan and cited cases of deceptive election practices in other states. But Maryland's 2006 election took center stage as Cardin and fellow Democrats -- Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson and Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler -- recalled false claims made by the campaigns of then-Lt. Gov. Steele and then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who was running for reelection against Democrat Martin O'Malley.

Blowups of the flier and sample ballots distributed in Prince George's were prominently displayed at the hearing.

Johnson said he drove through his majority-black county the day before the election and spotted thousands of campaign signs that read: "We are not slaves to the Democrats." They resembled the fliers and "Democratic sample ballots" showing Ehrlich and Steele topping the slate of candidates. The fliers bore the pictures of Johnson, his predecessor Wayne K. Curry and past NAACP president Kweisi Mfume and seemed to suggest that they had endorsed Ehrlich and Steele.

The signs "referenced a dark period in our history," Johnson testified. "They said the Democrats were treating African Americans as slaves."

"I spent the entire day trying to inform citizens this was a hoax," Johnson said. "Every citizen wanted to know why I was the turncoat who abandoned the Democratic Party." The Republicans had recruited homeless people from Philadelphia as poll workers to hand out the fliers.

Maryland Republican leaders defended the episode at the time as an accepted part of bare-knuckle, Election Day politics.

Gansler said the bill is carefully worded to protect the First Amendment's right to political speech. "If this legislation had been in place, then the person who produced this flier would have been subject to criminal prosecution," he said.