Posted on 11/02/2005 4:40:09 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Political bloggers should not have their free speech rights infringed upon by campaign finance law, House lawmakers said Wednesday in debating legislation that critics said opens up a new loophole for uncontrolled campaign spending.
The House was set to vote on the bill that would exclude blogs, e-mail and other Internet communications from regulation by the Federal Election Commission.
The bill, if passed by the House and Senate, would stop the FEC from moving ahead with court-mandated rulemaking to govern political speech and campaign-related spending on the Internet.
"The newest battlefield in the fight to protect the First Amendment is the Internet," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, sponsor of the legislation. "The Internet is the new town square, and campaign finance regulations are not appropriate there."
Opposition was led by Rep. Marty Meehan (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., who with Rep. Christopher Shays (news, bio, voting record), R-Conn., championed the 2002 campaign finance law that banned unlimited "soft money" contributions that corporations, unions and individuals were making to political parties.
"This is a major unraveling of the law," Meehan said. At a time when Washington is again being tainted by scandal, including the CIA leak case, "it opens up new avenues for corruption to enter the political process."
But Hensarling argued that, without his legislation, "I fear that bloggers one day could be fined for improperly linking to a campaign Web site, or merely forwarding a candidate's press release to an e-mail list."
Bloggers from liberal and conservative perspectives made similar predictions at a hearing on the subject in September. "Rather than deal with the red tape of regulation and the risk of legal problems, they will fall silent on all issues of politics," said Michael J. Krempasky, director of the Web site RedState.org.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., writing Wednesday on a blog he recently started, said the bill "is about all the folks out in the blogosphere. It's going to protect what you say. It keeps the hand of the federal government out of Internet speech."
But Meehan said no one wants to regulate bloggers. He said he and Shays have an alternative that would protect the free speech rights of bloggers while closing the cyberspace loophole where a lawmaker could vote for a prescription drug bill and then ask pharmaceutical interests to write six figure checks for campaign aids for them to run on the Internet.
FEC commissioner Scott E. Thomas said at the September hearing that some $14 million was spent on Internet ads in the 2004 campaign.
A federal court last year, amid the escalation of political activity on the Internet, instructed the FEC to draw up regulations that would extend federal campaign finance and spending limits to the Web.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada has introduced a companion bill to the Hensarling measure, but the Senate has yet to take it up.
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The bill is H.R. 1606.
On the Net:
Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/
Federal Election Commission: http://www.fec.gov/
fyi
Leftists hate the First Amendment.
Where conservatives were quoted I understood what they were talking about.
Where liberals were quoted I saw nothing but YADA YADA YADA!
"The Internet is the new town square, and campaign finance regulations are not appropriate there."
Leftists hate the First Amendment only when it doesn't work for them. By far the most successful blogs are conservative and moderate, in the Libs mind this cannot be allowed to stand.
The Swift Vets proved that point, as does Free Republic and Little Green Footballs, and Powerline, etc.
Cleaning up corruption starts and ends by cleaning up those in elected office or government appointees who accept cash for favors. Don't curtail our free speech. Prosecute the corrupt politicians!
But Meehan said no one wants to regulate bloggers. He said he and Shays have an alternative that would protect the free speech rights of bloggers...
All free speech is protected by the fist amendment. Any law that violates the first amendment is null and void.
There's easily ten times more unconstitutional "laws" on the books than laws that adhere to the constitution. Twenty-thousand gun-control laws are in violation of the second amendment alone.
Rather's Revenge.
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