Or so I hope. I haven’t heard from Maria Chappelle-Nadal’s lawyer since Monday, and I haven’t been served with any papers this week. Prior to the primary, I received several more e-mails imploring me to retract my statements before it was too late, but I’ve received nothing since. I’m assuming that Chappelle-Nadal, having now won the state senate seat, has wisely decided to back away from pressing her lawsuit against me.

It’s probably a really good decision, considering that she already won her race, she wouldn’t win the lawsuit (truth is an absolute defense), and she would only draw further attention to her lie. In fact, I wondered why she would even bother to lie or threaten a lawsuit in the first place, given that she was very confident in her victory at the polls, and the target of her lie trailed her badly in her estimation at the time and in the final tally.

In any event, we won’t shrink from calling people liars, even if they have good progressive voting records. A lie is a lie, no matter who tells it. I fear that Maria Chappelle-Nadal may learned that lying won’t cost her a victory, but I hope that in the future she will know not to threaten people who disagree with her or call her out on her behavior. And it is my earnest hope that Maria Chappelle-Nadal grows up a little in the Senate and manages to accomplish something for the residents of her district.  

So here’s Maria Chappelle-Nadal’s defense for attacking Joe Adams as “bought” by Rex Sinquefield. She has a release from the American Federation of Teachers claiming that Rex Sinquefield donated money to one committee that in turn donated to another committee that ended up buying an ad touting the AFT local’s endorsement of Joe Adams for University City mayor in 2006. Got that?

The ad cost $396, and several other contributors gave money to the 80th Legislative District Committee, including The Pasta House, which is owned by Adams supporter Kim Tucci. In other words, this is a minor ad removed three times from Rex Sinquefield which was easily covered by contributors who had nothing to do with Sinquefield, and still not even paid directly to Adams’ campaign.

It’s telling that the Chappelle-Nadal campaign comes up with this lame attack right before the election. If they had real evidence, they would have released it months ago and hammered Adams with it. Instead they release a last second blast hoping to tar an opponent unfairly without enough time to correct the record for voters.

And this doesn’t even cover the fact that Maria Chappelle-Nadal blatantly altered the text of the St. Louis American endorsement to misrepresent what the newspaper wrote about Adams and Chappelle-Nadal.

UPDATE: ArchPundit has a typically smart take on the new information:

What you have to know is that AFT is now lying to try and  back up the original lie.  They claim the 80th District Committee was primarily funded by All Children Matter PAC which is a school voucher PAC that is heavily funded by Sinquefield. It is true that All Children Matter sent $5,000 to the Committee before the ad (a $400 cost). Adams also received a $3,200 donation from the 80th Committee on April 1st.  However the bulk of funding for the 80th for the first three reporting periods of the year is Pyramid Construction that donated $20,000.

Of course, Maria might want to give her good friend Jamiliah Nasheed a call as well since she received a donation from the 80th that year as well.

The full text of the AFT release is below the fold, complete with typos.  

AFT Missouri (AFL-CIO) Releases Statement on Joe Adams Ties

To 80th Legislative District Committee

ST. LOUIS (August 2, 2010) – American Federation of Teachers (AFT Missouri, AFL-CIO) recently learned that Joe Adams, Democrat for State Senate in the 14th District has denied any funding from billionaire financier Rex Sinquefield, but campaign finance records for the 80th Legislative District Committee show otherwise.

In a statement from AFT President Scott Ciafullo he states: “In 2006, one of our locals endorsed Joe Adams for Mayor University City,” says Ciafullo. “In an ad placed in the Suburban Journal promoting our endorsement of the then-mayoral candidate Joe Adams, it stated the ad was paid for the 80th Legislative District Committee, which is tied to Ted Hoskins, a staunch school voucher advocate and a current state senate candidate in District 14. This committee, at the time, was primarily funded by All Children Matter, a campaign committee that was funded by Rex Sinquefield and other prominent school choice advocates.”

I’ve received the following e-mail from an attorney representing Maria Chappelle-Nadal:

I represent Maria Chappelle-Nadal.  The purpose of this message is to address

various statements you have published about my client.  You have

repeatedly slandered and

libeled her by calling her a liar and falsely claiming that she misstated

facts

about financial support you have received from Mr. Sinquefield.  All of

Ms. Chappelle-Nadal’s statements are verifiable facts; yours are

intentional lies designed to tarnish her reputation.

Neither Ms. Chappelle-Nadal nor I wish to pursue civil litigation against

you.  We

will not do so if you immediately issue retractions of your statements of

Facebook, showmeprogress.com and all other mediums you have used to

unlawfully assault her reputation.  Your retractions must specifically

state that my client did not lie about the

contributions you have received.

If you comply with this request by 9:00am on 8/1/2010, we will refrain

from filing suit

against you on 8/2/2010.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.  Please do not

hesitate to

contact me with any questions or concerns.

I responded with the following e-mail:

Can you specifically cite which claims that I have made that you believe to be false, and can you please provide evidence to substantiate those claims? As I’ve previously stated, I would gladly retract any statements which are proven to be false, but I will not retract a statement without compelling evidence that it is false.

UPDATE: ArchPundit gets involved on Blog Saint Louis.

[…]So Maria and her lawyer, please add me to the any lawsuit.   If you notice the about page, my address is there if you wish to serve me.

Eric is right here-Maria is blatantly lying by modifying a quote from the St. Louis American.  There’s simply no question there. If she wants a retraction, she needs to provide the evidence that Sinquefeld did pay for a pro-Adams flyer.So far, she has refused to do any such thing.  If she can provide the evidence, she also can request the American make a correction, but that does not absolve her of passing along a fake quote regardless.  Of course, no evidence of such a flyer exists and it should be available in the Missouri campaign finance reports.

Oh, one thing Maria-I will seek to recover all legal costs from you and your attorney and seek full penalties for spurious litigation if you do try it.  Cheers!

UPDATE 2: Blue Girl offers her support on They Gave Us A Republic in a way that only Blue Girl can.

The full text of the St. Louis American endorsement of Maria Chappelle-Nadal reads as follows:

Maria Chappelle-Nadal has six years of experience in Jefferson City and is a proven, stalwart progressive battler. Her youthful energy also gives her the edge over Joe Adams, the only other candidate in this race who is free of the taint of major funding by Rex Sinquefield. While we have some concern for her, at times, brash behavior and penchant for picking fights she doesn’t need, we feel she has learned some painful lessons in this regard. It is with raised expectations that we endorse MARIA CHAPPELLE-NADAL IN THE 14TH DISTRICT.

It’s amusing that the St. Louis American would qualify their endorsement with a note of concern, because that concern is well-warranted.

I pointed out in my most recent diary, Rep. Chappelle-Nadal completely altered the American’s endorsement to say that she was the only person in the race who had not received contributions from Rex Sinquefield. Even if that were true, that’s not what the newspaper’s endorsement said. The endorsement expressly stated that Joe Adams also has not received contributions from Sinquefield. And Chappelle-Nadal’s claim in the mailer, independent of the fact that she falsely attributed the claim to the St. Louis American, is simply not true as far as I can tell. Sinquefield didn’t contribute to Adams in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, or 2010. So naturally I felt pretty comfortable calling someone who completely misrepresented facts a liar.

Understandably, Maria Chappelle-Nadal was not happy to be called out for lying. I received a number of e-mails from Chappelle-Nadal expressing her disappointment and telling me that I was incorrect, but when I requested evidence to the contrary, she was not forthcoming in specifics. The only thing she was willing to say was that Sinquefield money paid for an Adams mailer back in 2006 (I’m assuming during his last re-election campaign for University City mayor), but when I requested a copy of the mailer in question, or contact info for a person who had a copy, I was told only that she wasn’t going to do my research for me. The last e-mail I got from her stated that a formal announcement from the AFT concerning the mailpiece would be forthcoming, and that I should expect to hear from her attorney.

Back to that St. Louis American endorsement. Can anyone have confidence that Chappelle-Nadal has learned “painful lessons” in regards to her “brash behavior” and “picking needless fights”? The easiest thing for her to do would have been to send me a scan of mailer that allegedly was paid for by Sinquefield along with some evidence that it was indeed paid for with Sinquefield money, or put me in touch with someone who could provide that information, and I would have gladly posted an update.  Instead, I got the threat of legal action.

Now, as a state senator, it’s not enough to be right on the issues. It’s not enough to make a nice red meat progressive speech, as I’ve seen Chappelle-Nadal do on more than one occasion. These are all well and good, but you’ve got to cobble together coalitions with allies who have been with you for a long time as well as allies that might only be with you on that day, or else you’re not going to get much done. This is doubly true in the State Senate, which is much smaller than the General Assembly. Given this personal interaction with Chappelle-Nadal, I have a hard time believing she’s going to be an effective legislator for the citizens in the Missouri’s 14th Senate District.

Maria, there’s another candidate in your race who is free from the taint of Rex Sinquefield donations, and his name is Joe Adams. He was actually your mayor for several years, if you can recall.

Maria Chappelle-Nadal, outgoing representative of the 72nd House District is running in a 4-way race for state senator of the 14th Senate District. She just sent out mailers to her prospective constituents that mangle a quote from the St. Louis American (and that’s being generous) to claim that Maria is the only candidate who hasn’t received money from Rex Sinquefield. Joe Adams, the former mayor of University City, has not received any contributions from Sinquefield, and the original quote from the American in no way resembles Maria’s claim.

The quote on the front of the mailer says, “I’m proud to be the only candidate in this race that has not been bought by billionaire Rex Sinquefield who is trying to own state government.” The quote on the back appears to directly cite the St. Louis American: “Her youthful energy gives her the edge [and she is] the only candidate in this race who is free from the taint of major funding by Rex Sinquefield.”

In fact, the quote from the American explicitly states that Joe Adams has not taken money from Sinquefield. In other words, Maria’s mailer “quotes” the opposite of what the American said, and one can’t draw any other conclusion than that the quote was deliberately altered. Maria is flat out lying.