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From the diaries -- kos)
[Remember me? To get back up to speed, here's the last update or two.]
Roy Temple's FiredUp group of websites has chosen not to wait for the FEC's final rules on political activity on the Internet, and has instead filed a direct challenge to the Commissioners to show their cards on activist websites.
Here's the deal: under the FEC's rules, you can request an advisory opinion from the Commission for guidance on how some particular regulation will apply to your campaign or organization going forward. The FEC has 60 days to respond, and its ruling "provides legal protection to the requester and to any person involved in a specific activity 'indistinguishable in all its material aspects'".
So who is FiredUp, and what do they want? Let's take a look:
- it is a for-profit, limited liability company.
- the website analyzes the news of the day, conducts original news reporting of its own, and publishes commentary on social, political and economic justice issues from the site's contributors, prominent progressive figures and others.
- they intend "to endorse, expressly advocate, and urge readers to donate funds to the election of Democratic candidates for federal, state and local office."
- they are neither owned nor controlled by any political party, political committee or candidate. While site access is free, they intend to generate revenue via advertising, selling paraphenalia and other sources.
(Sound familiar?)
And what do they want? The same thing we sought from the FEC:
Fired Up seeks affirmation that its publication of a network of progressive blogs across the country qualifies for the press exemption.
This request for an advisory opinion puts the issue squarely and plainly before the FEC -- can an ideologically-focused website that engages in news, editorial and commentary and advocacy receive the full protections of the First Amendment and not be forced to understand and comply with the byzantine regulations of campaign finance law?
Let's hope the Commissioners remain where they seemed to be headed last month, such as Commissioner Weintraub's comments to Salon:
"People like Red State [a prominent conservative blog] or Kos clearly fall under the media exemption," Democratic FEC commissioner Ellen Weintraub, seen by some observers as the potential swing vote, told Salon. "Practically all bloggers -- I can't think of one who wouldn't -- would fall under the media exemption or the volunteer. And that's if we do nothing, if we don't change the rules at all." . . .
Both Weintraub and the bloggers point out that corporations and labor unions could have enacted the [kooky Halliburton-blogger] scheme in 2004, but didn't. As Kos put it in his testimony: "The free market of ideas policed itself. It worked." It's counterproductive, they argue, to impose regulations in order to stop something that hasn't happened yet. "To say we have to restrict all sorts of conduct because we're afraid of what people might do in the future, even though they haven't done it in the past -- it's a little bit premature," Weintraub said.
There is a role for y'all to play in keeping sunlight on this issue and persuading the FEC to rule in FiredUp's favor. More to come.