CCP has long argued that a primary purpose of campaign finance laws is to harass one’s political opponents. This certainly seemed to be the case in an MUR that the Federal Election Commission announced it had closed out yesterday. MUR 5949 had been pending for nearly a year.
The initial complaint was brought by Kirk Tofte, a supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and was filed against a blogger (and former Iowa Democratic Party chairman) who supported the campaign of Barack Obama.
The complaint was apparently motivated primarily by Tofte’s disappointment that the blog, www.iowatrueblue.com, touted Obama and had nothing positive to say about Clinton. Tofte alleged coordination between the Obama campaign and the blog and that it was a "direct arm of the Obama for President campaign." Tofte also claimed that the blog had a "donate" tab on its website.
Yesterday, the FEC announced that it had unanimously "found no reason to believe the law had been violated by Gordon and Monica Fischer, iowatrueblue.com or Obama for America. Operation of a web site and political blog by Mr. Fischer was the type of Internet activity the Commission specifically exempted from the definition of ‘contribution’ and ‘expenditure,’ so the nominal costs of operating the site were not contributions to any committee. The Commission also found no evidence of coordination with Obama for America and concluded that any coordination would have been permissible under the same Internet regulations because the activity was specifically exempted from the definition of ‘public communication.’"
Iowa True Blue should be thankful that existing FEC regulations protected its First Amendment rights, but these rights surprisingly are not protected in statute. Click HERE to read more about efforts to permantly protect online political speech.
