Political players have hit the Net hoping to do what campaign finance "reform" has stopped them from doing on radio and television – and now the Federal Election Commission wonders whether to appeal a recent court ruling saying they have to extend the new "reform" spending and finance limits to online political activity.
"I don't think anybody here wants to impede the free flow of information over the Internet," said FEC vice chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, perhaps alluding to heavy criticism of the campaign finance reform law for unconstitutionally imposing restrictions on political speech. "The question then is, where do you draw the line?"
The campaign finance reform law exempts Internet ads – such as those from, for example, the National Rifle Association's webcasting and talk shows, and the anti-trial lawyer November Fund's ads criticizing vice presidential nominee Sen. John Edwards (D-North Carolina) – from campaign finance reform's bar on corporate money for television and radio ads targeting federal candidates close to election time. The new law also exempted Net ads from its ban on coordination between candidates and groups raising or spending corporate funds.
But in September, federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly dismissed that coordination exemption for "severely undermin[ing]" the campaign finance reform law. And both the presidential campaigns of President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Massachusetts) have hinted recently that they would like to see campaign finance reform-related action taken against groups – such as the anti-Bush MoveOn.org and the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans For Truth – critical of their messages and taking those critiques online.
Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer said campaign finance reform should apply to cyberspace because large amounts of money are being spent there around election time, even if the law may not always apply to the Internet. "[B]y the same token," he told reporters, "the Internet cannot become a major avenue for evading and circumventing campaign finance laws on the grounds that people just want the Internet free from regulation of any kind."
Republican Net consultant Max Fose is skeptical of the Kollar-Kotelly ruling. "Whenever there's something new and emerging and it's still developing," said the man who once helped campaign finance reform's mastermind, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), with Internet issues, "I think is going to hurt how political candidates and elected officials look to use the Internet, to not only be elected but look to get voters involved."
