Posted on 01/17/2008 7:23:07 AM PST by xzins
A conservative group must abide by campaign finance laws if it wants to run ads promoting its anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton movie, a federal court ruled Tuesday.
Citizens United had hoped to run the television advertisements in key election states during peak primary season. The court ruling means the group must either keep its ads off the air or attach a disclaimer and disclose its donors.
Lawyers for the group had argued its 90-minute "Hillary: The Movie" was no different from documentaries seen on television news shows "60 Minutes" and "Nova." That prompted skepticism and, at one point, outright laughter from the judges during a hearing last week.
Campaign regulations prohibit corporations and unions from paying for ads that run close to elections and identify candidates. Citizens United argued that the advertisements promoted the movie and should be treated as commercial speech as opposed to advocacy against the Democratic New York senator.
A three-judge panel unanimously disagreed. The film does not address legislative issues and was produced solely "to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous place in a President Hillary Clinton world, and that viewers should vote against her," U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth wrote.
A similar issue surfaced in 2004, when Citizens United sought to keep filmmaker Michael Moore from advertising "Fahrenheit 9/11" in the run-up to the presidential election. The Federal Election Commission dismissed the complaint after Moore said he had no plans to run the ads during election season.
Citizens United plans to runs its ads in key primary states during election season. The ads include clips from the movie, including one in which Dick Morris _ a former adviser to President Bill Clinton who is now a critic of the Clintons _ saying the New York senator is "the closest thing we have in America to a European socialist."
By law, challenges to the campaign finance regulations are considered by a three-judge panel of district and appellate judges in Washington. During last week's hearing, Citizens United drew the most criticism from the panel's two Republican nominees _ Lamberth and Judge A. Raymond Randolph, an appellate judge. U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts was a nominee of President Clinton.
I believe he signed it to try to make peace with McCain after the 2000 election fiasco in South Carolina.
McCain is a very vindictive man, and he's still actively working to torpedo all of Bush's initiatives in the Senate. It amazes me that his ego is that huge...he thinks he can stab the party in the back and still be elected our president.
He has the audacity to try to get our nomination using votes from Dems and Independents. He even brags about it (claiming diversity). He didn't win the Republican vote in New Hampshire....Mitt did. I believe he'll fizzle now that he's pretty much run out of states that have open primaries.
I agree he should have done it. Obviously he was looking ahead to re-election and didn’t want McCain against him.
I agree with everything you say.
If only Fred Thompson hadn’t been such a good lawyer in filing his brief supporting the law, maybe the Court would have overturned it.
Did Hilly and Bill appoint the Judge??
That isn't a white horse: "And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death" [of freedom]...
Yes, my dripping with sarcasm note was intended for bots, and you can rest assured they saw it.
Thought so.
That’s why I piled on...
IMHO, the proper thing to do would be to advertise the movie with Senator Clinton’s name bleeped out of the ads, and a disclaimer that they couldn’t say on the air who the movie was about.
Thanks.
I don’t think they ever won a case but they were good for a few things. They did push for depositions and forced some things into the open that no one else would touch.
I can’t believe that it wasn’t very long ago we actually watched Chris Mathews and thought he wasn’t too bad since he DID report on some of the misdeeds of the clintons. Lou Dobbs was a source that would occasionally report on things that we knew were happening but no newspaper or network would cover them.
Fox news still doesn’t cover a lot, but it certainly has changed what is reported on by the networks and the newspapers of record. When we had to rely on ABC,NBC,CBS,CNN,PBS, NYT, and the Washington Post we were pretty much thrilled when anyone would throw us a scrap.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.