I can't be sure, but consider this:
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has ads produced by and paid for by the American Taxpayers Alliance on their website attacking Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Ronnie Musgrove.
Coordination in Federal Campaigns is illegal if I remember correctly.
The American Taxpayers Alliance has a history of shady behavior and only supporting Republican candidates.
They receive millions from corporations and business groups, but refuse to reveal their donors allowing them to anonymously attack. (We're guaranteed free speech; We weren't meant to have anonymous attack speech)
They also have CLOSE ties to Republican Governor Haley Barbour:
The ATA is led by Scott W. Reed, a lobbyist and Republican operative. Reed managed Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign, served as executive director of the Republican National Committee under Haley Barbour (who received ATA's assistance in his 2003 Mississippi gubernatorial bid)...
After Barbour defeated Musgrove for Governor in 2003 the legislature passed a law that would have required groups like the American Taxpayers Alliance to reveal their donors. Barbour, who had benefited from those shadowy groups most, vetoed the bill. Now his hand-picked Senator, Senator Roger Wicker, is soon to be up for election against his old opponent Ronnie Musgrove. I suspect we will see more of the same.
So are they in coordination? If so, is that illegal?
If not, is it an in kind contribution? If it is wouldn't that be a soft money contribution? Wouldn't that be illegal according to most recent campaign finance law?
It sure seems as though that could be the case.
John writes: "We're guaranteed free speech; We weren't meant to have anonymous attack speech."
ReplyDeleteMeant by whom? Publius, Federal Farmer, and the other then-anonymous authors of the Federalist and Antifederalist papers would probably disagree with that assessment of the First Amendment...
True. Mr. Civil Libertarian. :)
ReplyDeleteWhere do you stand on anonymous political advertising then?
Very good catch, John. I am not up on election law, so probably can't be much help. I have to give that First Amendment issue some thought, before weigh in 100%.
ReplyDeleteI'm mostly with Tom on what Publius et. al would have to say . . but . . I do not think anonymous political advertising is a good thing. From a legal-analytical standpoint, it may not be a good idea to put pamphleteers and PACs (or the like)in the same category. That's as far as I can go with it without doing some reading.
The Gov. slipped one under the radar on us. Announced late yesterday (I guess that's when it was) he wants to use some money that was intended for hurricane-related emergency health care to build roads to attract more Toyota. And also to fill the rainy day fund so he can spend the whole budget.
Kinda funny considering how much attention the health issues with those trailers just got.
I'll be writing about this, of course. :)
John, thanks for this. Honest answer? I agree on the problem but disagree on the solution. The First Amendment, in word, intent, and precedent, seems pretty obvious here--Congress can't prohibit anonymous ads...but that doesn't mean that people have to sell ad time to anonymous advertisers. I think a private sector solution, much like what we've seen from the MPAA or the Comics Code with respect to content regulation, is probably the way to go.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, I think there needs to be a national initiative on this front...but I think it needs to be directed at the media, not Congress. This is a problem, but it is a problem that only the private sector can resolve.
But couldn't those groups then sue the advertisers for restricting their paid "speech?"
ReplyDeleteI think the problem we got into is when we equated money (paid advertising) with speech.
John writes: "But couldn't those groups then sue the advertisers for restricting their paid 'speech?'"
ReplyDeleteNot at all. The First Amendment does not require private corporations to honor free speech; it only requires the government to do so.
Now, I think it would be churlish if any network established regulations that blocked advertisements in a blatantly content-specific way (e.g. accepting conservative ads but not liberal ads, or vice versa), but as long as the policy is content-neutral, it's no different from existing standards and practices regulations that prohibit certain kinds of personal attacks. This is something that networks absolutely have the power to do, if they don't mind losing the ad revenue--and that's the kicker.
In order to get these regulations enacted, customers need to be vocal enough about these issues that it starts making good business sense for networks to turn away more political advertisements.
"I think the problem we got into is when we equated money (paid advertising) with speech."
ReplyDeleteThe advertising--paid, unpaid, begged, borrowed, or stolen--is unquestionably speech. I don't think anyone would argue with that. If it turned out Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense because the French bribed him to do it, for example, that doesn't change the fact that it's Thomas Paine's Common Sense.
The money as speech issue only comes into play vis-a-vis who can accept donations from whom, and I don't consider that a free speech issue, but it isn't directly relevant to the question of what kinds of ads one can broadcast.
Personally, BTW, I wouldn't mind seeing all TV and radio stations turn down political advertising across the board. This would force the candidates to make themselves known through earned media, retail politics, rallies, surrogates, and Internet content. It would take most of the money out of politics.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't see how the government could make this happen and still adhere to the First Amendment. It would have to be a private sector decision.