Bayfield County Circuit Judge John Anderson finally ended the defamation lawsuit filed by Attorney General JB Van Hollen against the Greater Wisconsin Committee. Van Hollen, in letting the Greater Wisconsin Committee's motion to dismiss, dropped the lawsuit, but the Greater Wisconsin Committee was seeking compensation for court costs before letting the matter end.
According to the Associated Press, Judge Anderson ruled the Greater Wisconsin Committee, "couldn’t claim costs for defending itself because it was never technically served with the lawsuit."
I still think that if a campaign threatens to file a defamation suit, and certainly if it goes as far as the Van Hollen campaign did, it should either follow through or pay some sort of penalty. Otherwise the lawsuit just becomes a weapon of intimidation and it makes it appear there is no validity to the charge against the candidate even if there possibly is some validity.
Of course, given how tangled this got, it makes you wonder about our attorney general's decision making ability.
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