Political Blog Sued By Mayoral Hopeful
by Christine Stuart | September 27, 2007 4:30 PM
Posted to Courts
| Legal
Connecticut Local Politics, a non-partisan political blog, and a handful of bloggers who comment on the site are being sued by a Derby candidate for local office.
Mel Thompson, who wanted to run as an independent candidate for mayor in Derby, was denied an opportunity to be on ballot because the petitions he submitted were not notarized.
In the lawsuit, he alleges his civil rights were violated and “that defendants Ctlocalpolitics.net, Jason Jones, Melissa Ryan, John Doe#1 Owner of Connecticuts Smallest City Blog and John Doe#2 a.ka. Derby Conservative have published and republished malicious and defaming known falsities about the plaintiff and said publishing and republishing of said known falsities has damaged the plaintiff and reduced his standing in his community.”
Here and here are the comments regarding the local race.
In the lawsuit Thompson alleges, “a conspiracy to suppress voter turnout, voter participation and the civil rights of plaintiff by means of intimidation, harassment and purposeful manipulation of legal documents and processes that govern ballot access pursuant to state law.”
Thompson filed the lawsuit himself in Bridgeport federal court and did not retain an attorney to file it on his behalf. According to the Connecticut Post, Thompson has a law degree, but is not a member of the Connecticut Bar.
He’s suing all the defendants in the case for a total of $100 million.
Comments (2)
Posted by: Gary Doyens | September 28, 2007 10:26 AM
Mel Thompson's attempt to place blame on a blog for his failure to perform is one of the more pathetic political efforts I've every witnessed in more than 35 years of closely watching local and national politics. Blog postings have nothing to do with inability to get signatures, or with his failure to comport with the rules.
In Hartford, good candidates who would have been able to give integrity challenged Mayor Eddie Perez a run for his money (err, our money) were prohibited from doing so because they were too stupid to follow all the rules, and he used a technicality to boot them off the primary ballot.
I don't remember reading anything about Mel Thompson, but this lawsuit charade is a joke and I hope Derby residents are smart enough never to put this poor loser in office....ever.
P.S. Start checking his assets, when he loses, it would be a good time to have the judge assign payment of legal fees to Mr. Thompson for a fivilous lawsuit.
Posted by: Jim Brewer | September 30, 2007 7:38 PM
This seems to be a case of first impression in Connecticut. A public figure, politician, suing a blog site for "republished malicious and defaming known falsities about the plaintiff and said publishing and republishing of said known falsities has damaged the plaintiff and reduced his standing in his community."
Wow, two issues come to mind, what are these "known falsities" and with all due respect, how does one reduce a politicians' standing in the community?
Perhaps Mr. Thompson ought to invest more time in learning how to run a campaign and less on stupid lawsuits.
There was a time these type of suits were called "SLAP" suits for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.
Motion to Dismiss. . . GRANTED!!!