Shays/Meehan Respond...

RedState's Mike Krempasky, and Kos's Kos sent a letter this morning to House members urging them to reject the Shays/Meehan bill on the internet and campaign finance.

Rep. Marty Meehan and Rep. Christoher Shays responded this afternoon in a Dear Colleague letter, the full text of which is below:

Dear Colleague:

We are writing to correct some misconceptions about our legislation, H.R. 4194, the Internet Anti-Corruption and Free Speech Protection Act of 2005, circulating on the internet.

We share the view that the Internet has great virtue in permitting individuals to engage in robust political discourse for little or no money. But this cannot serve as cover for allowing Washington lobbyists, corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals to spend huge amounts of soft money in coordination with federal candidates to buy campaign ads on the Internet.

Many have sought to use fear, uncertainty, and doubt to raise concerns that free speech on the internet is in danger. Here are the real facts about the differences between our bill, H.R. 4194, and the soft money loophole bill, H.R. 1606 introduced by Representative Hensarling.

Protecting Speech Online

Most importantly, H.R. 4194 offers the same protection for individuals communicating online as H.R. 1606 - from blogs to podcasts to wikis to technologies not yet even developed.

In both bills, any communication by an individual made on that individual's website is exempt from the definition of "public communication" in the campaign finance law.

Soft Money Loophole Under H.R. 1606

Unlike H.R. 1606, our bill would not exempt from the law soft money spent by political parties and by federal candidates in coordination with Washington lobbyists, corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals, to buy campaign ads on the Internet.

We prevent these soft money expenditures for campaign ads on the internet in order to protect both the soft money ban enacted in 2002 and the longstanding ban on corporate and union spending in connection with federal elections.

H.R. 1606 would open the door to corruption and the appearance of corruption by allowing Washington lobbyists, corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to coordinate with a federal candidate to spend unlimited soft money to buy campaign ads on the Internet.

This is a concern shared by reformers as well as the federal district court in Washington that reviewed and invalidated identical language to H.R. 1606 when it was written by the FEC.

In the court case reviewing H.R. 1606's provision, Judge Colleen Kollar Kotelly wrote that the language "severely undermines" federal election law, would "permit rampant circumvention" of the campaign finance laws, as well as "foster corruption or the appearance of corruption."

H.R. 1606 does nothing more than codify this FEC regulation that the court invalidated precisely because it would "foster corruption."

It is important to note that the FEC did not appeal the court's ruling. If the FEC believed that these findings about the FEC regulation (identical to the language in H.R 1606) were wrong, the Commission would have appealed the court's ruling, just as it appealed a number of other rulings in the case.

Protecting Incorporated Bloggers

In an effort to protect individual bloggers who incorporate for liability purposes, our bill treats such corporations the same as individuals - exempt from the law.

A different concern circulating on the internet is that bloggers who engage in partisan political activities and routinely solicit contributions to candidates of one party are not eligible for the "press exemption" and therefore would not be exempted under our bill. That concern is also false.

The question of whether the "press exemption" should be applied has nothing to do with our bill, or how our bill would be applied to an "incorporated blogger."

Group Activity: Not Regulated Under H.R. 4194 or H.R. 1606

Other concerns being raised regard political group activity online. Some have suggested that Yahoo Groups, or even group bogs, would be required to register as federal political committees. This is untrue. Our bill does not affect the already clear definition of a federal political committee which has been long-established under current law. Even large amounts of spending by individuals for computer equipment and services to communicate on the Internet would not turn such group activity into a political committee. Our bill would not change that result.

More Soft Money Under H.R. 1606

One final, and extremely important issue, is that the Hensarling bill would allow state political parties to use unlimited soft money to buy ads on the Internet promoting and attacking federal candidates.

Such soft-money funded political party ads were prohibited by the Bipartisan Campaign Act of 2002. By exempting all Internet communications from the definition of "public communications," the Hensarling bill would permit state political parties again to use unlimited soft money to influence federal elections. Our bill does not allow this use of soft money in federal elections.

It is possible to protect individual speech on the Internet without gutting core provisions of the nation's campaign finance laws, and without allowing the use of corrupt soft money by federal candidates and political parties to influence federal elections.

This is what our bill does and what H.R. 1606 fails to do.

We urge you to support H.R. 4194.

Sincerely,

Chris Shays

Marty Meehan