Rick Hasen's web log
March 16, 2006
"Rules Puts off Vote on Internet Bill"
Roll Call offers this report (paid subscription required). It begins: "The House Rules Committee decided Wednesday to defer its vote on a contentious measure that would determine whether Internet communications ranging from paid advertisements to Web logs should be free from campaign finance regulations, leaving the issue unresolved as the Federal Election Commission prepares to issue its own rulemaking on the matter." Why? It apparently came down to the question whether the bill would be debated with an open rule (allowing amendments) or a closed rule (not allowing amendments). Meanwhile, as The Hill reports, "The Federal Election Commission (FEC) yesterday postponed a controversial decision on subjecting Internet political speech to campaign-finance regulations, raising the stakes for today’s scheduled House vote on a bill that exempts all blogs, Web ads and other online communications." Now the FEC will need to take up its final rule (the contents of which remains a mystery).
For reactions to the turn of events in Congress, see Bob Bauer, Brad Smith, and Kos. (I would link to posts by those opposing 1606 and supporting the CDT alternative, 4900, but I haven't found any such posts or press releases yet.)
Of particular interest, given Adam Bonin's questions about whether 4900 would regulate Daily Kos and similar blogs, is this snippet from the article in The Hill:
- Two of the Web's most famous blogs, the liberal Daily Kos and the conservative RedState, have trumpeted the Hensarling bill since it failed on the suspensions calendar during a November vote, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage but snagging more than half of the House. The bloggers of Daily Kos, RedState and other online forums argue that the Allen-Bass alternative, which would provide targeted exceptions from the law for individuals and some websites, would force them to register as political committees.
Allen did not dispute that possibility. He noted that his bill would allow websites unrestricted operations as long as their annual expenditures did not exceed $10,000.
"They might well have to file," Allen said of blogs as large as Daily Kos, "but that’s the point. If the Internet becomes more important, the types of financial abuses that occurred within the campaign-finance system in general" are more prone to occurring.