Co-chaired by Prof. Elizabeth Garrett, subcommittee recommends online paid political ads should be treated same as mailers, phone calls and television commercials
- By Gilien Silsby
After holding public hearings at the USC Gould School of Law and in Sacramento, a subcommittee of the California Fair Political Practices Commission issued several recommendations to ensure disclosure of the sources behind online paid political advertisements. The recommendations are provided in a Report on Internet Political Activity and the Political Reform Act.
Co-chaired by USC Law professor Elizabeth Garrett, one of five commissioners of the FPPC, the subcommittee recommended that online paid political advertising should be subject to the same disclosure regulations as mailers, phone calls and television commercials.
“When the Political Reform Act was adopted more than three decades ago, no one contemplated the explosion in the use of the Internet and new technology for political campaigns,” Garrett said. “Our proposals take account of this new reality, treating paid communications over the Internet in the same way as similar communications broadcast on radio or television or sent through the mail.”
The report, co-authored by Garrett and commissioner Timothy Hodson with the input of FPPC staff lawyers, also recommended that grassroots political organizations and uncompensated individuals unconnected to a campaign would generally not be subject to regulation. The subcommittee intended that political activity on the Internet continue to flourish and provide a forum for robust policy debate among Californians. In addition, the report recommends that paid political bloggers not be subject to disclosure at this time, because the candidate or campaign is required to disclose any payments to bloggers.
“Voters need to know who is behind paid political communications they receive through e-mail or over the Internet to cast informed votes,” Garrett said. “Full and truthful disclosure is just as vital in the digital world as it is in the traditional environment of political advertisements.”
The hearings in March at USC Law and in Sacramento brought wide-ranging viewpoints from dozens of campaign consultants, Internet experts, public interest advocates, a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission and law and politics experts.
The panel led a discussion on current trends of paid political activity on the Internet, e-mail and social networking sites, and it looked at who is behind electronic political campaign and ballot measures in California.
Based on testimony at the hearings and extensive research conducted by the Fair Political Practices Commission staff, the subcommittee formulated four basic principles to guide further regulatory action and statutory change:
• Full and truthful disclosure of campaign activity, including Internet activity, by candidates and political committees is required to ensure the integrity of democratic institutions and the electoral process.
• If regulations require disclosure with respect to paid political communications that are printed or broadcast, then similar paid communications that are disseminated over the Internet should be accompanied by similar disclosures.
• The commission should avoid regulating voluntary grassroots political activity and ensure to the extent possible that the Internet remains a flourishing source of robust and vibrant political discourse among citizens.
• The commission should broadly interpret the words of the Political Reform Act to allow regulation consistent with these principles and the objectives of the act. Legislative change should be written to allow flexibility in future regulatory responses to the use of technology that is evolving rapidly and in unanticipated ways.
The Fair Political Practices Commission, the California watchdog agency that oversees campaigns, will discuss the report at its Aug. 12 meeting, and it is expected that new regulations to implement the recommendations will be considered later in the fall.
To read the full report, please go to: http://www.fppc.ca.gov/agendas/08-10/SubCommReport.pdf
Previous Article
