RedState Release: the FEC's draft rule on internet activity
By krempasky Posted in FEC — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Due to a quirk which apparently limits the characters in a post on RedState, I've added a page here with the full text and footnotes of tomorrow's rule.
For my money - the best early take on the proposed rule comes from Winfield Myers over at the Democracy-Project.
As we continue to analyze the NPRM's proposals, it's important to bear in mind that the uproar within the blogosphere, which has finally been picked up by the MSM, is chiefly responsible for the move to retain a general exclusion of Internet communications from increased federal regulation. And absent Bradley Smith's interview with CNET, in which he warned bloggers of the potential for this regulation, the blogswarm that ensued obviously wouldn't have occurred. A great deal of work has been done in order to bring us to this point, and much remains to be done. But the blogosphere has indeed flexed its muscles here, and we've been heard.
More from me in a bit - but one quick preview of my concern - Commission intends, apparently, to grant the media exception to bloggers on a case-by-case basis. That's troubling.
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RedState Release: the FEC's draft rule on internet activity 2 Comments (0 topical, 2 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
The most insidious ruling by the judge in Shay is the one summarized by the FEC here:
Third, the district court invalidated the "content prong" of the Commission's coordinated communications rule at 11 CFR 109.21(c), which incorporates the definition of "public communication" at 11 CFR 100.26. The Shays court found that expenditures for communications that have been coordinated with a candidate, a candidate's authorized committee, or a political party committee have value for, and therefore are in-kind contributions to, that candidate or committee, regardless of the content, timing, or geographic reach of the communications. Shays at 63-64. Accordingly, the court held that certain regulatory exclusions contained in the "content prong" "undercut [the Act's] statutory purpose of regulating campaign finance and preventing circumvention of the campaign finance rules." Id. at 63.
In other words, if you advocate for the election of President Bush, and you "coordinate" this advocacy with the Bush campaign, you are making an "in-kind" contribution to his campaign.
It'll take more than the 15 minutes I've looked at this to figure out all the ramifications of their proposed rules. And to me, this is part of the problem of the BCRA. One should not need an hour or two of a lawyer's time to figure out what you can and cannot say, alone or in "coordination" with other people, about political campaigns.
So I say again what I've said here before. The problem is not the FEC. They seem to be trying hard not to hit bloggers per se. They tried to exempt all internet communications before. But the BCRA itself, according to the judge, wouldn't let them do that. The law itself is what stifles free communication, so we should devote our energy to repeal of the BCRA and not so much on these rules, which will inevitably be so complex it will take hours and hours to slog through and understand, and will in any event leave bloggers with large readerships without any safe harbor.
We may not like what Kos has to say, but would we want him investigated, fined, and maybe even imprisoned by the federal government because of his contract with Howard Dean? These rules, however they are finally drafted, would probably do it, because that's what the law requires.
Repeal the BCRA!