By Adam Pagnucco.
Celeste Iroha, the first filed candidate for county executive, really does not want me to write about her campaign. After I broke the news of her candidacy, I noticed that her website inaccurately claimed that political contributions were tax deductible. She then sent me an email requesting that I not write about her campaign, which I published. Now she has contacted me again. That email is reprinted below.
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Good morning. This is Celeste Iroha, one of the candidates for MC County Executive. Hope this email finds you well! In reference to my last respectful email request that was not taken into account, and the continuous lies about my website showing that donations are tax deductible, I will be having to move to another level to get your articles down in regard to my campaign.
Continuing to write about a campaign when the candidate has cordially asked you to stop writing about the campaign as much as you do, it seems like you do not seem to respect people’s requests.
You will probably continue to share my emails with your readers, but I respectfully will have to take it to the next gear. As you are not a reporter/journalist from what I see on your about info.
Best,
Celeste C. Iroha
Official Democratic Candidate for Montgomery County County Executive for the 2026 Gubernatorial Primary Election
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First, I have not published “continuous lies” about her website. It did claim that political contributions were tax deductible and I published screenshots on March 13 and March 18. But as of this writing, her website does not include such a claim. She still needs an authority line as required by state law. That’s an easy fix as illustrated in the screenshot from the state’s campaign finance summary guide shown below.
Second, candidates don’t get to pick who writes about them. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution contains broad protection of political speech. That has been reinforced in landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Mills v. Alabama, 384 U.S. 214 (1966), in which Justice Hugo Black wrote:
Whatever differences may exist about interpretations of the First Amendment, there is practically universal agreement that a major purpose of that Amendment was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs. This, of course, includes discussions of candidates, structures and forms of government, the manner in which government is operated or should be operated, and all such matters relating to political processes.
First Amendment protections don’t just apply to journalists – they apply to everyone. There are other opinion sites in MoCo and there are plenty of voters who express political opinions on social media or elsewhere. No candidate should have an expectation that they can select who gets to express opinions about them. A better choice is to make a case for why you should be elected. And if you make a mistake, just say oops and fix it. If Iroha had done that, I wouldn’t be publishing these emails.
So I will keep writing about lots of candidates, not just Iroha. Good luck to everyone running for office!