HR1607NOV4

TheWeekInCongress.com

Week Ending November 4, 2005

H.R.1606 To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to exclude communications over the Internet from the definition of public communication.

BRIEF

Congress passed a 2002 campaign finance law that was vague on how it might impact political speech on the Internet. The Federal Election Commission concluded that Congress did not intend to regulate the Internet but sponsors of the bill, The Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002, sued the FEC resulting in a court order requiring the FEC to develop and implement a rule that would cover, in a fashion that all political speech and participation is regulated, Internet communications.

According to bill supporter Rep. Candace S. Miller (R-MI-10^th) the FEC regulations “could limit the ability of online activists to talk to campaigns, to give discounts on advertisements, to spend money maintaining their site, to link to candidates’ sites, to advocate the election of a candidate, or to send political e-mails.” Some online publications and some blog sites could be granted the ‘media exemption’ given to newspapers and news programs but no clear rules apply to determining what the qualifications for exemption would be.

This bill would exempt websites and blog sites from such laws.

Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-MA-5^th) opposed the bill stating, “under the guise of protecting bloggers, (the bill) actually undercuts the progress made by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and reopens the floodgates of corrupting soft money in Federal elections.” Rep. Meehan said further, “The issue here is not individual speech. The issue is corrupting soft money. The primary constitutional basis for campaign finance regulation is preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption of candidates or officeholders. Creating a new way for Members of Congress or the Cabinet to solicit and then coordinate or control unlimited amounts of soft money is precisely the scenario campaign finance reform banned.”

Rep. Meehan gave specific examples of how the bill could lead to legal abuse of campaign finance laws, “We are talking about legislators. For example, let us say we had a prescription drug bill that was written by the pharmaceutical industry. This Congress could pass that bill in the middle of the night, and then Members of Congress who passed the bill could actually ask those same pharmaceutical interests to write six-figure checks for campaign ads for them to appear on the Internet.

“But let me give another example. What could happen is you could have an energy bill, provisions of which were written by the oil and gas industry. Let us say a company like Exxon, as a result of it, had the highest profits they have ever had, record profits because of gasoline prices going out of control. The same people who advocated for that energy bill that Exxon supported could go to Exxon and say, could you use some of those profits to support my campaign with a massive online campaign ad buy.

“This is no minor affair. This is a major unraveling of the law.”

Sponsor: Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX-5^th)

Vote: Passed House 225 to 182 November 2, 2005 (RC 559)

Cost to the taxpayers: No discernible cost.