[El Gato]

It does have to be a PAID effort to stimulate grassroots lobbying. It should not apply to you or me posting on Free Republic

Because many of us contribute to FR, but not all, the nonpaying lurkers could be considered the General Public, while those who pay and post could be considered the "clients", and thus it would apply to FR.

You know that's how it will be interepreted, if not right away, eventually. Probably right away for FR, maybe no time soon for DU. (Do they even pay, or does some sugar daddy pay the freight for the DUmmies?)

[HiTech RedNeck]

Yeah, ever see a DUHathon?

[txhurl]

Democratic Underground has almost the same fundraising mechanics as FR.

[conservative in nyc]

I said it shouldn't apply to you or me posting on Free Republic, as long as we're not being paid to post.

Whether it would apply to Jim Robinson or Free Republic itself is a different issue. I don't the law is intended to apply to a website that itself doesn't do any lobbying, but stranger things have happened. I'd like to think that since no one is giving money here for the website to lobby on any particular issue (nor is the money spent on any particular issue, but on the general upkeep of the website), that it wouldn't. But, as I said in other responses, it's a really crappy, complicated law that doesn't make much sense. And stranger things have happened.

The law is really intended to shut down small, conservative grassroots issue groups that call on the public to call their Congressmen when they propose liberal legislation. It will overburden these small groups with high regulatory costs. The large liberal groups like Public Citizen and moveon.org pretty much exempted themselves from it.