We've got weeks to focus on Alito, but I need your help
today.
H.R. 1606, the Online Freedom of Speech Act, is up for a vote tomorrow, Wednesday, November 2. Its bipartisan cosponsors include Rep. John Conyers and Rep. Tim Ryan, and we need your help in calling and emailing Congress today to ensure that it passes.
(See part one here.)
Let me tell you what the bill does:
- This all started when Congress passed McCain-Feingold, which didn't mention the Internet at all -- and this was in 2002.
- So the FEC, in passing its regulations to implement the law, explicitly said "none of the anti-coordination rules apply to the Internet".
- The pro-regulation lobby sued, arguing that this went beyond the FEC's authority, because the spirit of McCain-Feingold meant that Congress really wanted to regulate such activities.
- They won, and the district court ordered the FEC to regulate. They've been working on that since March, and for a lot of reasons, there is a better than decent chance that they'll now get it wrong.
- Here's why: They've taken a narrow mandate to correct the anti-coordination gap as an excuse to propose all sorts of new restrictions on your internet activity, ranging from making group weblogs into regulated "political committees", to potentially imposing a "blogger code of ethics" with disclosure and disclaimer requirements enforceable by law (requirements otherwise unheard of for any other independent actor who deals with political campaigns), to intruding into the workplace to tell readers how much time they can spend participating in online political discussion groups. Plus which, they have no idea how to deal with podcasting, p2p networks or any of the emerging technologies for discussion.
- This bill reenacts the FEC's original exemption, and is intended to say, "No, Courts, this is really what Congress itself wanted. Don't make the FEC regulate what we don't want them to touch." Its passage would forestall the FEC's current process, while leaving other issues open for future consideration by Congress or the FEC if the need arises.
See
Bob Bauer and
Allison Hayward for more.
Today, we need everyone here to be involved in lobbying your representatives in Congress, and especially Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, to pass The Online Freedom of Speech Act when it comes up for a vote tomorrow afternoon. Let them know that the Democratic base wants this passed, and that the pro-regulation community simply has it wrong here, with potentially devastating consequences for us.
As I've written in the Washington Post, this temporary exemption reflects our best opportunity to keep the political blogosphere free from burdensome regulation as the 2006 elections approach. We simply cannot trust the FEC to get it right, in regulating a medium which they do not entirely understand and for which the harms they are seeking to prevent are wholly theoretical.
(The fact of the matter is this: if an entity had a million dollars to spend in support of a candidate, why would they ever spend it on the Internet and not television or print? The whole point of this medium is that it doesn't take money to reach people; it takes ideas.)
Our fundamental argument is this: with the FEC about to receive a number of new members who aren't familiar with the record, and with the 2006 elections soon approaching, now is not the time to force the Federal Election Commission to start regulating in an area which caused no problems of corruption in 2004. While precisely-tailored regulations would be wonderful, the truth is that it's only through this kind of significant carve-out that anyone will feel comfortable speaking out on and supporting federal candidates through the Internet without the fear of investigation, subpoena and complaint. It is the only way to be sure that group blogs, incorporated blogs, and blogs that accept advertising from or speak with candidates are protected in their activities.
For background, I had a piece in the National Law Journal which speaks generally to the need to keep Internet free from regulation. (And see a lot of archived stuff.)
I will not lie to you and claim that the alliances here aren't weird -- as with all the FEC-related stuff, our best friends in these matters are those conservatives who oppose campaign finance regulation generally, and our opponents are those reform-minded Democrats who believe that regulation is the answer to corruption in politics. While that's true generally, it isn't with regards to the Internet.
Indeed, our most organized and singleminded foes here are members of the generally-seen-as-liberal pro-regulation lobby who would ordinarily be our allies in the battle to keep corruption out of the political process, but in this case stand in opposition to this site's ability to function as an overtly partisan website.
So call or email today, starting with your own Congressman and then with the Democratic leadership. Tell them that you're a liberal and you support this bill, that the Internet ought to be free from byzantine FEC regulation, and that the pro-regulation lobby is just wrong here. Be polite, be brief, and let us know what they say.
Do Something Before It's Too Late
Rep. Pelosi: Call (202) 225-4965, or email her here.
Rep. Hoyer: Call (202) 225-4131; only wants email from consituents.
To find your Congressman: link
Thanks. Do it now.