Defenders of free speech warned that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation would chill political discourse, but Congress passed reform anyway and President Bush signed it.
Most of official Washington, of course, denied the legislation would suppress speech. But they were wrong, just like almost all of their predictions about the impact of newly passed legislation.
Roughly three years ago Bradley Smith, a Federal Elections Commission member, and his FEC colleagues concluded with a 4 to 2 vote that campaign finance laws did not cover the Internet. But they were overruled by federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who said to “permit an entire class of political communications to be completely unregulated … would permit an evasion of campaign finance laws.”
Smith, a Republican—and the election commission’s leading dissenter because he doesn’t believe political speech should be regulated—and his two fellow Republicans on the commission wanted to appeal the ruling. They were blocked, however, by the commission’s three Democratic members.
So Smith has notified the blogosphere that it could run afoul of campaign finance laws simply by creating hyperlinks or forwarding press releases from campaigns. “If someone else doesn't take action, for instance in Congress, we’re running a real possibility of serious Internet regulation,” Smith recently told CNET News.
Apparently “someone else” was listening—Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has introduced legislation that will topple the court ruling that placed the Internet under the onerous McCain-Feingold Act.
Here’s the twist: Harry Reid helped hoist campaign finance reform on America’s back when he voted for it in 2002.
So the senator gets no award for protecting free speech. OK, maybe a pat on the back, for trying to protect free speech on perhaps the most important and promising communications medium we have.
But it would have been easier—and actually worthy of an award—to can McCain-Feingold in the first place.