Altered image of Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate in new ad raises ethics concerns
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A new television attack ad in Wisconsin's hotly contested Supreme Court race features a doctored image of the liberal candidate, a move that her campaign claims could be a violation of a recently enacted state law.
The image in question is of Susan Crawford, a Dane County circuit court judge. It appeared in a new TV ad paid for by the campaign of her opponent Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County circuit court judge.
The winner of the high-stakes race on April 1 will determine whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court remains under a liberal majority or flips to conservative control.
The Schimel campaign ad begins and ends with a black-and-white image of Crawford with her lips closed together. A nearly identical color image from her 2018 run for Dane County Circuit Court shows Crawford with a wide smile on her face.
Crawford’s campaign accused Schimel of manipulating the image, potentially in violation of a state law enacted last year. The law, passed with bipartisan support in the Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, requires disclosure if political ads use audio or video content created by generative artificial intelligence. Failure to disclose the use of AI as required can result in a $1,000 fine.
“Schimel will try to manipulate images and the facts because he’s desperate to hide his own record of failure,” Crawford spokesperson Derrick Honeyman said in a statement.
Schimel's campaign spokesperson Jacob Fischer said the image was “edited” but not created by AI.
Peter Loge, the director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University, said images should never be changed to give a false impression.
“That said, as these things go, it’s not that egregious,” Loge said of the Schimel ad.
He pointed to numerous other examples of images being doctored for use in political ads, including one in 2015 by a political action committee supporting Wisconsin Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson. The image showed then-President Barack Obama smiling and shaking hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. In 2020, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona, posted the fake image again on social media.
Obama and Rouhani never met. The image was fake.
A doctored image was also used last year in a television ad in the Indiana governor’s race.
“A good rule of thumb is to take everything with a grain of salt,” Loge said. “Just because you see it on television or on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true.”
The Schimel ad attacks Crawford over the release of a convicted rapist in 2001 because the state's office of criminal appeals missed the deadline to appeal to the state Supreme Court. Crawford headed the division at the time, but the error miscalculating the appeal deadline was made by another attorney in the office and by two secretaries, according to a report by the attorney general.
“Crawford didn't bother filing the appeal in time, letting the rapist walk free," the Schimel ad claims.
After that error was discovered, Crawford ordered a review of every pending appeal's deadline and personally calculated the deadline for petitions for review to the state Supreme Court. Republican officeholders at the time who investigated what happened, including then-state Rep. Scott Walker, said the error was an isolated incident.
Schimel served one term as attorney general between 2015 and 2019 when Walker was governor. Walker appointed Schimel as a judge the day after Schimel lost reelection in 2018.
—--
This story has been updated to correct release date of inmate to 2001, not 2010.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
