Political Bloggers Deemed "Media" By Court
Both blogging empires and lone loonies are A-OK:
Political bloggers can breathe a sigh of relief, as the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has just resolved two complaints by determining that Internet blogging activities are not within FEC regulation because such activities fall within media and volunteer exemptions to the Federal Election Campaign Act.
In the matter of Daily Kos:
The site has charged a fee to place advertising on its Web site. It also has charged for providing "a gift of free advertising and candidate media services" by posting blog entries that support candidates.
The FEC considered arguments that DailyKos should be regulated as a political committee. However, the FEC rejected these arguments. Instead the FEC reasoned that the site is directly within the ambit of the media exemption and thus is not subject to regulation under the Federal Election Campaign Act.
The FEC evidently concluded that the DailyKos site is neutral, in that it is not owned or controlled by a particular party, committee or candidate.
Semi-freelance political bloggers are also good to go:
it was alleged that [Michael L.] Grace had leased space on a computer server to create a blog that specifically advocated the defeat of Mary Bono in a November 2006 election. Grace allegedly coordinated these expenditures with Bono's election opponent, David Roth.
The FEC determined in this matter that there had not been in-kind contributions to Roth's campaign emanating from Grace's blogging activities.
