Friday, April 01, 2005

FEC Eyes Bloggers' Political Ties

On March 23, the FEC issued revised draft rules (.pdf) outlining which internet communications would be subject to campaign-finance law. The FEC had originally issued rules that exempted all internet communications from its overall definition of "public communication" that can trigger the application of federal election rules.
But Reps. Martin Meehan (D-Massachusetts) and Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut) sued to scrap those regulations on the grounds they didn't go far enough. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia then ordered the FEC to take another crack at it.
The FEC's revised draft rules exempt internet communications except for paid advertisements.
...The FEC has, however, proposed requiring disclaimers of any political affiliation in e-mails that reach more than 500 recipients in "substantially similar communications." But that mass e-mail rule would only apply when the e-mail addresses in question were purchased from a third party -- so bloggers who send out e-mails to subscribers would presumably remain unaffected.
Also unclear is whether all bloggers should be included in the current "media exemption," which exempts the traditional news media from the FEC's contribution and expenditure rules.

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