Woo Hooo!!! Thanks for the BreaKing News BumP!!!
Looks like this election is officially Super-Soro$ized ...
I pity all the folks w/o remote controls who have to endure the hours and hours of ads the next few months.
Damn you FEC, damn you, I say. ;-)
Election Panel Won't Impose New Spending Limits on Groups
By GLEN JUSTICE
WASHINGTON, May 13 — The Federal Election Commission today refused, for now, to put limits on independent political groups that collect and spend millions in unlimited contributions, opening the way for advocacy groups supported by Democrats and Republicans to play a dramatic role in the 2004 elections.
The decision to postpone the rules for 90 days was a victory for a group of Democratic organizations that have played a critical role supporting Senator John Kerry, spending tens of millions to bolster his campaign as he emerged from the primaries.
It was a setback to Republican efforts to maintain the party's financial advantage by shutting these groups down. Many now say the decision will force them to begin matching Democratic fund-raising efforts, using advocacy groups of their own to raise millions in unlimited "soft money" donations.
"The 2004 election is going to be the wild west," said Michael Toner, a Republican commissioner whose efforts to introduce tighter regulations were defeated by a vote of 4-2. "We are going to see Democratic groups and Republican groups taking full advantage of the legal landscape. Tremendous sums of soft money are going to be raised and spent on both sides."
Some Republicans, however, said today they were happy to accept that challenge, saying they would prevail in such a matchup.
David Keating, executive director of a conservative 527 committee, the anti-tax group Club for Growth, said the F.E.C.'s decision in essence tells major Republican contributors come on in, the water's fine," The Associated Press said today.
The 527 organizations, named for the section of the tax code that created them, became targets for new rules in large part because Democratic groups seized upon them as a way to overcome the Republicans' significant financial advantage collecting soft money.
The commission's decision is one of the most important in the wake of the new McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which went into effect for the first time for this year's election. The law banned candidates and political parties from collecting soft money, which grew to hundreds of millions and was a primary funding source in the last presidential race.
However, that law did not directly address so-called 527 committees, one of the last remaining vehicles to introduce six- and seven-figure checks into the system. Groups like the Media Fund, America Coming Together, the MoveOn.org Voter Fund and dozens of others have already spent more than $170 million in this year's races and today's decision is expected to increase fund-raising by 527 committees.
Rather than acting on several versions of a proposal that would have imposed contribution limits and other restrictions on such groups, the commission voted, on the advice of its top lawyers, to delay new rules for 90 days. The decision makes it all but certain that new rules will not take effect for this year's race.
The postponement drew fire from campaign-finance watchdogs who want to see less money in the system. Some say that the decision was a blow to the integrity of the new law by allowing unlimited contributions to continue, and were harshly critical of the commission's lack of action, citing its role in the creation of the soft money system more than a decade ago.
"This was a moment of opportunity for the commission and they flinched," said Don Simon, a lawyer for Democracy 21. "This is the creation of the next big soft money loophole in progress."
Critics of the proposed rules, however, have argued that they are too broad and would have a disastrous effect on nonprofit groups of all sizes, stifling free speech on issues and producing a chilling effect on fund-raising.
But my computer is gonna be dialed in right here to Free Republic.