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Advocacy Blog
Thursday, October 18, 2007
FEC Rulemaking Hearing Moves Forward
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) hearing on the electioneering communication rulemaking continued today. BNA Money and Politics ($$) reports that yesterday attorney James Bopp told the commissioners "they should exempt grass roots lobbying ads from regulatory requirements, including disclosure of who finances the ads. He also called on the FEC to repeal its current rule defining express advocacy, which he said was vague and inconsistent with the Supreme Court's decision in WRTL."
Jan Baran, representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Laurence Gold, Representing the AFL-CIO, said that the FEC should not require disclosure of funding for ads dealing with policy issues and should take the opportunity to repeal a provision of its regulations--11 CFR Section 100.22(b)--which says that express advocacy that does not rely entirely on use of certain "magic words" relating directly to elections. . . . Gold hinted that the federation might accept a rule that did not require the name of every dues-paying member of a union to be listed in an FEC report.
Posted by Amanda Adams
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