Bill to Treat Bloggers as Lobbyists Defeated

Lawrence Person writes "The attempt to require political bloggers to register as lobbyists previously reported by Slashdot has been stripped out of the lobbying reform bill. The vote was 55 to 43 to defeat the provision. All 48 Republicans, as well as 7 Democrats, voted against requiring bloggers to register; all 43 votes in favor of keeping the registration provision were by Democrats."

Comments

Re:Not typical democrat behavior?

[ArcherB]

I could be wrong, but I think the target was talk radio and/or conservative sites that are advertiser funded like LittleGreenFootballs, but not MoveOn.org, which is funded by contributors (George Soros)

Re:It was about stopping astroturf not bloggers

[MrWGW]

Of course, then you run into a whole can of worms in the process of determining who was paid versus who wasn't. One can conceivably imagine the provision being used as an excuse for law enforcement (or worse) to rifle through bloggers' bank accounts to determine evidence of "illegal payment." This could cause all kinds of hassles, especially for bloggers who use their blog as a source of income and who might (as is often the case with self-employed workers) not follow proper proceedures for recording who paid them for what in terms of legal, legitimate advertising. Thus, it could be alleged that they had illegally accepted money for a political post on their blog without having registered as a lobbyist, and they could face jail time, et cetera. It is of course axiomatic that the ruling party of the moment could use this as a tool with which to quickly silence opposition.

Re:Not typical democrat behavior?

[rossifer]

It boils down to them not wanting unrestricted Internet criticism of incumbents. Essentially, Democrats are worried about 2008. The election of so many conservative Democrats, the so-called "Blue Dog" caucus, has split the party, and the more liberal leadership is worried about alienating their base.

Your speculation might have some merit if the typical blogger would have had to register under the act. As it turns out, however, the act would have only required bloggers who make and/or spend more than $25,000/year on a politics position blog to register. This article should be titled "Bill to Treat Astroturfing Bloggers as Lobbyists Defeated".

The actual grass-roots bloggers (and whatever their criticism of whoever they wanted to criticize) were never in jeopardy. But the Republicans and some Democrats made sure that astroturfers aren't in jeopardy either. Most of the Democrats were on the ethical side on this one. Sadly, they couldn't get a majority today.

Ross (registered Republican, but not very proud of that association right now)

Re:Conspiracy theorize all you want

[Overly Critical Guy]

The ACLU was against the bill. Are the ACLU a group of Republicans?