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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.'"
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.
It's not for promoting candidates, it's for smearing their opponents.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This seems to be good news (though I'll admit that I haven't been following the issue as much as I'd like to have -- I'm sure someone will point out a very reasonable downside to it).
I think the bad feelings (and subsequent reactionary attempts at regulation) come from the fact that the conservative voter base tends to be a bit older and less Internet-savvy. There's no reason they couldn't have the conservative equivalent of DailyKos, but it just wouldn't get read as much. So to conservatives it feels like there's an unfair advantage and that bloggers should follow the same rules as those who advertise on the Marconi Wireless to "level the playing field." But really, the right reaction would be to educate their voter base on this great new medium. I don't know if it would work, but I'm glad this sense of unfairness didn't result in opinion and discourse being subjected to the same regulations as advertising and fund raising. They're very different, and the latter two become empty manipulation without the first two.
When this first came up, I figured it was a lock that bloggers would get nailed (the FEC has a very colorful history of not understanding when technology is good and when technology is bad).
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
IANAL, but the answer to this question is based in 208 years of First Amendment law. Probably too voluminous to go into on this forum. However, "press" as defined under federal law is extremely broadly defined.
The key issues that the FEC looks at are as follows:
Is the organization in question owned or controlled by any "political party, political committee, or candidate" (these are defined under the regs). If it is owned by any of these, then it is considered an arm of that group and not "press".
If it is not owned by any of these, then the next question is whether the "major purpose [of the organization] is involvement in campaign activity". If the answer is yes, then it is considered a political committee (see above).
Note that campaign activity is specifically meant to be narrowly defined as involved in a federal election campaign. It does not encompass political activity broadly.
So as long as an organization publishing to the web cannot be considered owned or controlled by any political part, political committee, or candidate and its major purpose is not to be involved in campaign activity, then its protected from these regulations.
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.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
"an entity that would otherwise qualify for the media exemption"
Why does the "media" get an exemption? They have biases and vested interests. Freedom speech and the press is supposed to be for everyone, not just selected people who get "exemptions".
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
"Fox News' second most popular program is a show that features both a conservative and a liberal commentator debating current issues."
Fox's second most popular show is Hannity and Colmes. Calling it a liberal versus conservative show Fox's laughable disinformation.
Shawn Hannity is a loud-mouthed arch-conserative; Colms is a moderate. ("I think I'm quite moderate" - Alan Colmes to USA Today, 2/1/95). Or to paragraph Al Frankin, "Image a game of political see-saw with one person sitting on the far right end of the see-saw and someone sitting in the middle. See? That's fair and balanced on the Fox News channel"
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
No Longer a Menace to Society.
Alexandria Morrigan born 2/22/01 l. 20.5in wt. 7 lbs. 5 oz.
"press" as defined under federal law is extremely broadly defined.
e s/commonsense/
Given how influential Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" pamphlets were in spreading the movement towards the Revolution, I would think that one sided, heavy handed, idealogical rantings would be Constitutionally protected. DailyKos is the modern day equivalent of the political pamphlet, and should be protected as such. If there is going to be any kind of strong Democratic leadership/ideology to emerge places like the DailyKos are going to be important in sorting out a unified Democratic vision. Right now the only thing they have going for them is that they aren't the Republicans. That lack of cohesiveness and vision is how Kerry lost in 2004.
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/mileston
We are all just people.
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.
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.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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.
Fox deserves to be singled out because the other major news outlets, including CBS, make an honest effort to be objective and non-partisan. (The fact that CBS aired a false story is significant because it is a rare occurrence; on the other hand, Fox does it on a daily basis and it's become so commonplace that it barely even registers in the media) The major media outlets may not be perfect, but they do a pretty good job of making sure they report the truth. Fox, on the other hand, is quite transparently a front for the Republican National Committee, and make no effort to be objective or non-partisan.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
They make an effort to appear non-partisan. That's true. But there's no way an objective observer would think they actually are. Last election cycle the non-Fox networks pulled out all the stops for Kerry. And it's true the CBS story is a rare occurrence, but only in that they were caught.
I think this is all a question of perspective. There's no way you could ever convince me NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, and virtually all the print media don't have a leftward bias. I can see it for myself. But that's the difference - I'm willing to admit Fox has a rightward bias, whereas the fact that the rest electronic media establishment is overwhelmingly liberal is somehow news to people on the left.
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.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Pssst...if you're trying to point out conservative bias at Fox, it's probably not a good idea to use George Soros, er, Media Matters as your source. It's a pot/kettle thing, you know.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.