“Whether it is good speech or not is a debatable question but there is a lot more speech out there," said Chris Thomas a lawyer with 1st Amendment and Election Law experience. Thomas added that there few boundaries or limitations on the content of the political ads so long as some level of truth can be justified.
"Frankly, just about everything can be aired unless there is an absolutely totally and completely egregious lie that is in an ad which frankly, there almost never is,” Thomas said.
Thomas explained these groups, unions, or non-profits don’t have to disclose their source of funding meaning that in almost all cases they don’t. It only adds to the unlimited amount of material disseminated into the public during intense Presidential campaign years like this one.
"You don't need me to tell you this,” Thomas said. “All you have to do is turn on Channel 13 or any of the other stations or look at any of the local websites and you're seeing political ads on all of them."
Slaughter’s opponent, Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks (R – Webster) points out another important aspect of these outside media buys that voters should understand.
"I fully expect there will be outside money coming in to support both campaigns, we don't know for sure because we are not allowed to communicate with any of the outside groups," Brooks said of federal law that prohibits any direct coordination or communication between these groups and a candidate’s campaign.
In response to Rep. Slaughter’s remarks earlier Thursday Brooks added, "Her (Slaughter’s) campaign has been largely outside money and so I guess it's a little hypocritical to complain about outside money coming in."
One thing both candidates and their campaigns agree on is that the "noise" these outside ads make can be confusing to voters. They urge folks to go to campaign websites for various candidates or to trusted media outlets for accurate information.
