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?

[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)