FEC Will Not Regulate Political Blogging

eldavojohn writes "Despite complaints that political bloggers should be subject to campaign finance laws since they are donating huge amounts of money in the form of advertising and media services to candidates, the FEC will not regulate political blogging. From the FEC statement: 'While the complaint asserts that DailyKos advocates for the election of Democrats for federal office, the commission has repeatedly stated that an entity that would otherwise qualify for the media exemption does not lose its eligibility because it features news or commentary lacking objectivity or expressly advocates in its editorial the election or defeat of a federal candidate.'"

Comments

How long until they change their minds?

[Critical Facilities]

Seriously. I think this is great as it gives at least some hope to the prospect of getting third parties on a ballot and giving them some sort of visibility to compete with the standard two parties. What I wonder is, what if a large, successful site (similar to Slashdot, but with an obvious political angle) starts to give enough attention to a third party candidate that seriously threatens the chances of the other 2 parties winning? I'm betting suddenly there would be changes in regulations. I hope not, but I bet there would be.

Re:How long until they change their minds?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The party's point was to get George Bush, Sr., un-elected in 1992.

Two weeks before the Democratic convention, it was hopeless for the Democrats. Comedians were even making jokes about it. One joked that a worker assembling the convention stage said, "Ahhh, what's the point?"

Then, the day Clinton will speak, Perot pulls out. The eyes of the nation turn to see what Clinton will say. The rest is history.

Perot did a masterful job -- mission accomplished!

Given him and Bush, Sr., were bigshots in the Republican party going back to Nixon, one wonders what bad blood is floating around between them.

But the party was not about anything else. It was deliberately set up to be a nebulous thing True Believers could project their desires onto.

Re:What qualifies for a media exemption?

[conspirator57]

Hopefully just citizenship. While it's run by an individual it's constitutionally protected speech.

At some point in the muddied waters or tea leaves the government decides you're a business (say because you let an ad banner firm place ads on your site in order to defray the hosting cost, or say when you pass some number of daily readers, or say whatever, but definitely by the time you incorporate or get a business license.) This is an area the Internet has made difficult for the government and is another, broader issue entirely.

When that happens your company is categorized for a number of purposes, including taxes and business insurance. If you are a text/media content provider, then you are most likely some sort of publisher, which I think means for the FEC's purposes you are a media outlet, and thus in the same category as any other media outlet.

Besides which, the big boys selectively report and even endorse candidates. And given the economic pressure the newspapers are under, it won't be long before some of them have shrunk to the point that some former-individual-blog-turned-opinion-site (Drudge, anyone?) is bigger than them. Will there then be calls to strip that newspaper of their media credentials or FEC exemption?

Besides, many newspapers are divesting their printing press and contracting with a larger regional paper for printing. At what point is a paper no longer a paper?

Likewise, there are some individuals who have their own papers published (call them crackpots if you want, but remember that's how many of our more venerable papers started.)

How will you distinguish between "legitimate" media and the rest? Is it a worthy expenditure of government resources? Does it violate the rights of those determined not to be "press"?

The best solution is for the government to leave it alone and let the economy sort it out, which surprisingly enough is what the FEC chose to do. That's what we have a "free" market for, right? Oh, yeah it isn't free: it's mercantilism.

And until it isn't mercantilism we'll have people and companies calling for discrimination in order to protect larger businesses.

Re:This cuts both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never seen the show. Alan Colmes is a "moderate" who takes a liberal position on each and every issue and always sides with the Democrat party. Colmes is employing a classic Democrat tactic in claiming to be a moderate even while always taking the liberal side. If he talks like a liberal, acts like a liberal, looks like a liberal and even smells like a liberal then he is not a moderate, he is a LIBERAL.

Here, let me re-slant that for you:

[MoodyLoner]

"Despite complaints that Fox News should be subject to campaign finance laws since they are donating huge amounts of money in the form of advertising and media services to candidates, the FEC will not regulate Fox News. From the FEC statement: 'While the complaint asserts that Fox News advocates for the election of Republicans for federal office, the commission has repeatedly stated that an entity that would otherwise qualify for the media exemption does not lose its eligibility because it features news or commentary lacking objectivity or expressly advocates in its editorial the election or defeat of a federal candidate.'"

Yes, that's unfair of me. Daily Kos doesn't deserve to be compared to Fox News.

Also in the case of a presidential election

[Sycraft-fu]

A serious third party contender actually brings up the risk of congress deciding the election. If you check the Constitution, you find that to win a presidential election, a candidate must receive a majority of the electoral votes. Now some people think "majority" means "most". It doesn't in this context, actually, it means more than 50%. Currently, that's 270 electoral votes. If nobody gets 270 or more it doesn't go back for a second try or anything like that, rather the electoral vote isn't what decides the president. Instead, the House of Representatives elects the president, and the Senate elects the vice president.

Yes, really, it's happened twice before.

Well when there's only two candidates, it is extremely likely one will get a majority of votes. Since there is an even number of electors it is possible for a split EC, but that's quite unlikely. However with a serious third contender, it becomes much more possible. The third contender doesn't have to be more popular than the two others, just popular enough to grab some electoral votes.

For example suppose you have a race with the typical Democrat and Republican, but also a non-crazy Libertarian (I know, seems to be an impossibility). The Republican is the more popular than the Democrat, but only by a small margin. Let's say it would work like the 2004 election and result in a 286-252 win for the Republican. However the Libertarian manages to woo some of the fiscal conservatives to his side instead. Not very many, but enough to win Arizona, Kentucky and South Dakota. Now instead it's a 267-252-19 setup. The Republican has the most votes, but it isn't enough. Nobody wins, and it goes to Congress to decide.

As such at a presidential level, it's extremely stacked for a two party system. On other levels where it's a pure popular, who ever gets the most gets the job system, it is easier and indeed third party candidates to win from time to time. But it's a real problem in the presidential election. I mean look at how wound up people got about a president winning the electoral vote without winning the popular vote (also has happened before). Think the fury a congressional election would generate.

Mod Parent Up...

[Penguinisto]

If I had one I'd certainly drop it off here.

Partisanship, Fox-hatred and left v. right wing BS arguments aside, at least Fox News does go out of their way to provide two opposing viewpoints, and it seems rather popular. Sure, folks will immediately scream about Colmes' "moderate" tag, but honestly, that's nothing more than spin on Colmes' part (so as to paint his opposite as "extreme").

I have yet to see a credible truly-moderate opinionator (why? because 'beige' simply doesn't attract the attention that red or blue does, ne?) So please, let's dispense with any such notion that Colmes (or Kos, or whomever of any political stripe) is "moderate" - it's a strawman argument, to put it charitably.

Kos is nothing more than a prettified version of the Democratic Underground, IMHO. I wouldn't be surprised to see lots of left-leaning money being fed to his site, just as I wouldn't be surprised to see lots of right-leaning money being fed to his opposite counterparts' sites.

Both sides have their shills; both sites exist to feed the confirmation biases of their respective True Believers(TM, pat. pending).

That said, I wish everyone luck in removing the political money-laundering that accompanies sites like Kos. His income (again, like that from various others of either side) is likely funneled through a series of front organizations and companies who essentially parallel a given party's agendae (e.g. George Soros' funding of various 'grass-roots' events).

If you want to seriously remove political money from such events, then have the gov't set up a series of servers, where any political party can have equal bandwidth and space to proclaim whatever political theories turn them on (in a limited but equally accessible set of formats - text and image/multimedia files under a certain size, ferinstance). Sort of like a "Speakers' Corner" of sorts. It's not like they can't afford it or anything.

/P

This Shows the Law is Unconstitutional

[bxwatso]

If the Daily Kos is protected speech, then Rush Limbaugh is protected speech (and I think both should be). What about Bill Moyers? He largely advocates liberal causes on TV.

Now, what if I bought a billboard that said "Vote Libertarian," which is what the back of my iPod says? What is the difference except that the Daily Kos buys electrons to send its message and I buy ink molecules? The intent is the same.

Now, what is the real difference if a friend and I pool our money together to buy the billboard? That is the exercise of my right to free association and assembly. That is prohibited by this horrible law.

The whole McCain Feingold law is a slippery slope to collectivism (same as Stalinism, Nazism, Democrats, Republicans at different temperatures). McCain is especially an enemy of the Constitution, and it is a shame the Supreme Court didn't throw out the whole mess. Indeed, McCain Feingold is a brassy effort to silence the critics of incumbent candidates.

third parties and candidates

[falconwolf]

That's the "spoiler" effect that put Bill Clinton into office in 1992 and George Bush into office in 2000. I find it hard to believe many people who voted for Nader in 2000 would have chosen Bush over Gore. Given the election was so close it's hard to argue against the stipulation "Ralph Nader elected George Bush".

In 2000 I was planning to vote for a third party candidate, I hadn't made up my mind but I was going to vote for either Harry Brown or Ralph Nader. However when I saw how close the election was going to be I specifically voted against Bush by checking Gore, on the ballet. However Bush's brother and Florida campaign manager made sure he won Florida giving him the win. I felt though bad Gore would be better than Bush, and the last six years have verified my belief.

So it's not hard to understand why lots of people refuse to support third parties. Personally I'd rather the US had some kind of parliamentary system, where I could vote for the party that most represents my views. But that just isn't going to happen, barring some extraordinary event.

Who you vote for is up to you. With the exception of the 2000 vote I've voted for the person who came the closest to holding my political beliefs. I've voted Democrat, Green, Independent, Libertarian, non affiliated, Reform, and republican candidates. I prefer to do my own thinking and not have a party dictate it to me. As for what governmental system I'd rather have, I'd rather have one that's small government. Let people decide for themselves and not have government controlling them.

Falcon