A Stitch in Haste

Or should that be: "Regulation of Political News Back in the Blogs"?

Political bloggers who offer diverse views on Republicans and Democrats, war and peace argued on Thursday that they should be free of government regulation.

The notion was echoed by some members of the government agency trying to write rules covering the Internet's reach in political campaigns.

Amid the explosion of political activity on the Internet, a federal court has instructed the six-member Federal Election Commission to draw up regulations that would extend the nation's campaign finance and spending limits to the Web.

The FEC, in its initial rules, had exempted the Internet.

This is very easy:

--McCain-Feingold is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court be damned. Likewise, Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), which upheld limits on campaign contributions, was wrongly decided.

--Putting that aside, even under McCain-Feingold, that which is free of money should be free of regulation. A blogger who pays no money to a campaign should be free to blog without any governmental interference whatsoever.

--Likewise, a blogger who receives no money from a campaign should be similarly free of all regulatory scrutiny.

--As for bloggers who give money or money's worth (note: a favorable blogpost is not "money's worth"), they should simply be subject to the same disclosure rules as any other campaign contributor; the fact that a contributor is also a blogger should mean absolutely nothing.

--Meanwhile, bloggers who receive money from candidates (e.g., through blogads, PayPal donations and the like) should still be exempt from any disclosure requirements -- those should apply to the campaign, not the blogger.

There are already enough "follow the money" regulations, registration requirements and limits, both on contributers and campaigns, to make the incremental fact that a blog may be involved utterly irrelevant. The FEC, not to mention Congress, should just acknowledge that once and for all and move on.

Did I mention that McCain-Feingold is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court be damned?