( CNN ) -- Imagine that a state creates a `` ministry of truth '' whose job it is to referee elections to make sure that candidates and activists did n't insinuate , exaggerate or otherwise spin their messaging . Any political speech the truth-o-crats determined to be insufficiently candid would carry criminal penalties . Sounds like a parable about the dangers of taking `` clean elections '' too far , right ? Or a short story by George Orwell or Kurt Vonnegut ? In the American tradition of political free-for-all , the idea that an omnipotent censor would vet stump speeches and ads against some government-designed Truth-o-meter is a joke . Unfortunately , this is no dystopia . By one count , about 20 states outlaw campaign distortions . Most notoriously , Ohio has a statute that prohibits making `` false statements '' about a candidate or ballot initiative . In one instance , former Rep. Steven Driehaus , D-Ohio , used it against an anti-abortion group that had attacked him in the 2010 election . That 's the basis of a case now in front of the U.S. Supreme Court . A hearing last week in the case began with the claim that `` Driehaus voted for taxpayer-funded abortion . '' That 's good fodder for dinner-party conversation or TV talking heads , but it was surreal in that it ended up before the highest court in the land . There 's no question that Driehaus voted for the bill at issue -- the Affordable Care Act -- so the only dispute is whether statutory text actually provides federal funding for abortions ( a question of legal , economic and even theological interpretation ) . Alas , the Ohio law extends even past matters of interpretation . Its broad language also criminalizes rhetorical hyperbole . Legally speaking , Ohio 's ban of lies and damn lies is inconsistent with the First Amendment . Indeed , disparaging political statements -- whether true , mostly true , mostly untrue or wholly fantastic -- are cornerstones of American democracy . Mocking and satire are as old as the republic . Just ask Thomas Jefferson , `` the son of a half-breed squaw , sired by a Virginia mulatto father . '' Jefferson 's 1800 campaign against John Adams would make a modern spin doctor blush -- and that 's before James Callender , noted pamphleteer and `` scandalmonger , '' alleged that Jefferson had fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings ( a charge largely confirmed nearly 200 years later ) . In the fierce election of 1828 , supporters of John Quincy Adams called Andrew Jackson a `` slave-trading , gambling , brawling murderer . '' Jacksonian partisans responded by accusing Adams of securing a prostitute for Czar Alexander I . Later that century , Grover Cleveland was asked at every campaign stop , `` Ma , ma , where 's my pa ? '' ( Answer : Gone to the White House , ha ha ha ! ) More recently , we 've debated draft dodging , Swift Boats and birth certificates , not to mention the assorted infidelities that are a political staple . Any of these allegations could generate a complaint to the Ohio Elections Commission and thus turn commonplace jibber-jabber into a protracted legal dispute . Yet `` truthiness '' -- a `` truth '' asserted `` from the gut '' or because it `` feels right '' -- is a key part of political discourse . After all , where would we be without the knowledge that Democrats are pinko-communist flag burners who want to tax churches and use the money to fund abortions so they can use the fetal stem cells to create pot-smoking lesbian ATF agents who will steal all the guns and invite the United Nations to take over America ? Would we be better off electing Republicans , those assault-weapon-wielding maniacs who believe that George Washington and Jesus Christ incorporated the nation after a Gettysburg re-enactment and that the only thing wrong with the death penalty is that it is n't administered quickly enough to secular-humanist professors of Chicano studies ? Laws that criminalize `` false '' speech do n't replace smears and snark with `` just the facts . '' Instead , they chill speech such that spin becomes silence . Supporters of Ohio 's law believe that it somehow stops lies and insults , raising the level of discourse to that of an Oxford Union debate ( which itself is n't that high , but that 's another story ) . Not only does this hope stand in the face of political history , it disregards the fact that , in politics , truths are felt as much as they 're known . When a red-meat Republican hears `` Obama is a socialist , '' or a bleeding-heart Democrat hears , `` Romney wants to throw granny off a cliff , '' he feels a truth more than thinking one . No state agency can change this fact , and any attempt to do so stifles vital political speech . Laws such as Ohio 's are so absurd as to be laughable -- except that criminalizing political speech is n't funny . The Supreme Court should close the truth ministries once and for all . Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion .
The U.S. Supreme Court says that political speech should not be regulated by states . Ilya Shapiro will rule on an Gettysburg case that outlaws political lies . Shapiro : Idea that a censor would vet speeches , ads against D-Ohio -o-meter is a joke . Ohio 's ban of lies and damn lies , he argues , is inconsistent with the Affordable Care Act .