The Federal Elections Commission announced yesterday that they have reached agreements with three 527s in connection with violations of federal campaign finance law during the 2004 presidential elections. Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth has agreed to pay the largest civil penalty – $299,500. MoveOn.org will pay $150,000 and The League of Conservation Voters will pay $180,000.
Through their public statements, solicitations for contributions, and various communications to the public, these organizations clearly established that they were political committees during the 2004 campaign. Their failure to register with the Commission, abide by contribution limits and prohibitions, and file disclosure reports resulted in the organizations agreeing to pay…
It might be a little late, but at least it was done. Perhaps others will learn from this.
MB
Language is imprecise. With respect to every law, we have trouble agreeing on the spirit of the law. That is one reason we have judges and juries, and that is one reason to actually take a moment to review our most basic laws from time to time.
If you were taxed 100 percent of your income, you would effectively be a slave. I am glad you have some glimmering of this idea, at least. If you could trouble yourself to control your anger and self-righteous indignation and think, perhaps…..
Due to our inability to agree, we protect political speech by putting up with some indecency. Otherwise, we would be fining you or sending you to jail.
Money = speech, and these new campaign finance laws directly target that relationship. The explicit intent of these laws is to restrict the ability of some people to spread their own political message. Otherwise, why restrict the money.
Posted by Citizen_Tom | Friday, December 15, 2006, 11:12 amLanguage is imprecise, but that’s only an excuse of the intellectually lazy. Really, the only point I was interested in here was whether or not you were a hypocrite when it came to the First Amendment, and it seems you are. I wasn’t clear on that, and now I have my answer. Or as much of one as I care to pursue here. The campaign finance issue is a tough one for me, and has lead to many interesting and informative discussions. I don’t, however, expect I’d get anything close to that from further engagement with you. Which, as we both know, is no surprise.
Posted by MB | Friday, December 15, 2006, 11:35 amSo, MB, you spend all of this time and effort just to determine whether someone fits your definition of a hypocrite?
Posted by Jack | Friday, December 15, 2006, 1:44 pmFolks, after they go after the 527s, they will go after the blogs… You wait and see in 2008… Hell, some camps already do Oppo research on bloggers now.
Posted by thesqueakywheel | Saturday, December 16, 2006, 10:50 amvery interesting indeed
i hope you dont mind me bookmarking this site
Posted by dan k | Tuesday, May 15, 2007, 9:36 pm