Moore campaign finance reform

[jere7my]

According to this article in The Hill, which is "the newspaper for and about the U.S. Congress," Michael Moore may be banned from advertising Fahrenheit 9/11 on TV or radio after July 30th. Since the Republican National Convention convenes on August 30th, and since Moore has stated he intends his movie to influence the election, the legal counsel for the FEC says the ads may violate the ban on campaign advertising within 30 days of a primary election:

“The radio and television commercials that you describe in your request would be electioneering communications,” the counsel concluded. “The proposed commercials would refer to at least one presidential candidate. … They would also be publicly distributed because you intend to pay a radio station and perhaps a television station to air or broadcast your commercials. … Finally, they would reach 50,000 people within 30 days of a national nominating convention and or the general election.”

This is, of course, absolute bullshit stifling of a free press and open political commentary. Lack of advertising can pretty much kill a movie. This might not be a problem for Moore, but it might be a problem for The Hunting of the President, Silver City, Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, and The Corporation, all of which are forthcoming small documentaries critical of the Bush administration.

Now, I don't know how reliable The Hill is, nor how likely the FEC is to follow the advice of its counsel, so don't get worked up yet. This could be another "there's a draft bill on the table!" foofaraw. But jeez.

Comments

[irilyth]

Partisans on both sides are going to hit everyone they can think of as hard as they can with the new campaign finance laws -- which are fundamentally about stifling a free press and open political commentary, by prohibiting certain people from doing it. Now we just get to argue about which people are "legitimate journalists" and which are "corrupt" and trying to "influence the election", a line that Fox News and Moore both blur quite substantially.

The whole thing is just unbearably stupid.

[god-of-belac.livejournal.com]

Well, Moore is out to specifically influence the election, so to be fair if he was allowed to advertize you'd have to allow, say, one of the oil companies to put out independent ads praising Bush. Or something. The line is incredibly blurry, but Moore is pretty far over it.

You might say this is a reason why the campaign finance bill was a bad idea, but it's certainly a logical implication of that. I hope they crack down on the right-wing independent opinion-mongers just as hard, otherwise there is a real problem.