Thursday, March 16, 2006

FEC: CDT vs Hensarling There is bill before the house of representatives concerning how to harmonize the internet world particularly web logging and 'amateur' web sites - political fanboy sites - with FEC and federal campaign finance laws Bloggers Join Fray on Political Ads and Should campaign-finance laws apply to blogs?. This is H R 1606 introduced by Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) which appears designed to grant a broad exemption to internet activity 109th Congress: Bill H R 1606 | Congress votes database | washingtonpost.com. The link is the Washington posts new service  Congress votes database | washingtonpost.com for tracking votes and action on items before congress. clicking on more information pushes you into Thomas Search Results H R 1606 - THOMAS (Library of Congress) .  I wrote about this in the spring and early summer Federales , Web Logs, Politics, and You, and FEC-less. IPDI : Institute For Politics Democracy & The Internet which had the view previously when the FEC was considering this that this would open a damaging gap in campaign finance regulation. Which throughout the evolution of this issue was more in line with my view of it. The IPDI now joins another group the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) | Main in an alternate plan Comparison of H.R. 1606 and H.R. 4900 [pdf] . From IPDI statement on this: The CDT proposal is the basis of H.R. 4900 that has been introduced by Representatives Tom Allen (D-ME) and Charles Bass (R-NH) [Search Results H R 4900 - THOMAS (Library of Congress)]. The bill would ensure that citizen activists who spend less than $5,000 on Internet communications that discuss federal campaigns are not ensnared by the disclaimer and reporting obligations of the federal campaign finance laws, even if those communications expressly advocate for or against the candidates. Further, the legislation ensures that groups of individuals engaging in political activity on the Internet do not trigger ìpolitical committeeî status under the campaign finance laws unless they spend in excess of $10,000 on such Internet-activities. These provisions provide substantial protections to individuals engaging in political discourse online IPDI : Institute For Politics Democracy & The Internet IPDI Supports CDT Proposal to Protect Online Political Speech by Citizen Activists . Its always instructive to see where the ducks are lining up. All the conservative Will Scalia Blow the Whistle on This Constitutional Farce, wild west - fast and loose bloggers are behind the Hensarling bill with creates a flat out exemption for the internet in campaign finance regulation. This is similar to the the stance of the Online Coalition proposal from last spring which was championed by the same lot. the ' Blog ' associated with their site has their most recent entry a post by one 'Anonymous' champions H R 1606 against H R 4194 Search Results H R 4194 - THOMAS (Library of Congress) ( Rep Christopher Shays [CT -4]) from last November in strident emotionally charged terms that does not attempt shift its partisan nature far out of the subtext. In general the who and why here; The pajama media crowd, the bigger and more partisan bloggers on both sides are against regulation. It's the nexus there, the ability and desire to raise money, be of use to the political process that drives this. This is both a short term view grounded in the current situation, for a few. Far from the public interest of all. 11:48:40 PM    comment [];trackback [];

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. 2006 Paul Bushmiller. Last update: 3/23/06; 1:38:15 AM.