George Santos opens a window to the ethics of political lying

New York Congressman George Santos (R-N.Y.), who faces several investigations, is not the first candidate for office accused of lying, yet many seem to act as if he is. The question is whether such lying is ethically, if not legally, wrong and why, and whether there should be laws that make such behavior illegal. For the good of democracy, political lying should not be protected by the First Amendment; there should be sanctions for it.

Lying is supposed to be wrong. We were all taught that. But where is the line between lying and hyping? Nearly half of job resumes have at least one falsehood because people pad their work history and accomplishments to impress potential employers. Advertisers stretch the truth to convince us to buy products. Despite indignation, our society seems to condone some lying.

Unfortunately, American history is rife with candidates for office lying. The lies take different forms. First, they have lied about political or policy facts such as the state of the economy, crime rates, or foreign policy threats. Or they lie about the records or positions of opponents. Sometimes they lie about themselves or their own resumes.

Not all political lies seem to be of the same type. Lies about oneself are arguably the worst.  They speak to the character and fitness of a candidate for office. They are the basis for how most people judge candidates. We assume that honest people will run for office and that, if they are elected, we can trust their judgment to make decisions on a range of issues about which most of us have limited information.

Nonetheless, all lies pose a problem for politics and, ultimately, democracy.

American politics, including campaigns and elections, presupposes or depends upon truth-telling in order for it to operate appropriately. Elections are competitive contests where candidates put themselves and positions forth for voters to decide. Based on what candidates do and say, the public evaluates the merits of resumes and policy positions of those seeking office. Elections are marketplaces of ideas competing for voter approval.

This marketplace fails to work when candidates lie, especially about themselves. There are parallels to other institutions in society where truth-telling is assumed and enforced. 

The adversarial process in court, for example, works only because attorneys are required to act truthfully in presenting evidence. Juries can reach a fair verdict if they are presented with evidence and information they assume is true. Jurors may have to assess witness credibility and sort out the facts, but in the end they do not have to ask whether the facts they were presented are true.

The economic marketplace works only because of a belief in truthful economic activity. Yes, some might ascribe to the laissez-faire attitude of “let the buyer” decide. But most think that  outright consumer fraud or deception is wrong and that it distorts the marketplace. We presuppose all buyers and sellers will tell the truth and not benefit from lies or deception. This is why, in part, insider stock trading is wrong. Fair play and truth-telling is also behind the rules on intellectual  property.

In school, grades work as a fair measure of merit only if one presupposes that students are not cheating. Teachers suppose students are submitting their own work and assign grades based on it.  Thus, there are rules against plagiarism.

Connecting these three examples is the concept of character. Courts, markets and schools rely on trust and reciprocity, and both are related to honesty.

Elections are something like the adversarial process in court, business marketplaces, and grades in school. Candidates for office are like facts presented in court, products or goods for sale, or papers or exams submitted for grades. Political campaigns both cannot ask voters to decide which policies and candidates they like and ask at the same time what is truthful. At some point, there must be a baseline on what is considered true or false.  

Democracy rests on truth and knowledge. The classic First Amendment-defense of a free press and free speech is that the public is entitled to truthful information in order to be able to vote, make informed decisions, and hold the government accountable. Take away the presumption of truth-telling and, simply put, voters and democracy cannot do the job.

What George Santos allegedly did is an extreme version of what other candidates have done. He appears to have lied about who he was and what he represented. He gave voters, perhaps, a false picture of himself. If that’s true, it was resume fraud at its worst, false advertising, and arguably plagiarism all rolled into one. In an era when America has witnessed repeated lies about stolen elections and other matters, perhaps the public is finally disgusted. We need to rethink the outer boundaries of political lying.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court seems to think that the First Amendment protects lying and has enabled such behavior. The court struck down laws aimed at prosecuting stolen or false military valor and state laws prosecuting political lies. It is incredulous that the constitutional Framers ever would have endorsed the idea of a “constitutional right to lie.” Instead of focusing on the speaker, the law should focus on the rights of the public and democracy to receive truthful information. Until we do that, there will be more candidates and officeholders who lie.

David Schultz is a professor of political science at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn. Follow him on Twitter @ProfDSchultz.