Shays-Meehan (H.R. 4194)

I'm still trying to make up my mind about how campaign finance laws should apply to internet communications. Frankly, I don't know whether the Shays-Meehan Act would be an improvement over the status quo.

However, I do recognize one really bad argument that pops up in almost every discussion of blogs and the FEC. We find that argument distilled in a paragraph of a letter that Kos and Krempasky sent to Congress decrying the proposed Shays-Meehan legislation:

The purpose of campaign finance law is to blunt the impact of accumulated wealth on the political process, but this is does not occur online. While wealth allows a campaign or large donor to dominate the available space on TV or in print, there is no mechanism on the Internet by which entities can use wealth or organizational strength to crowd out or silence other speakers. Any citizen who wants to establish a website that discusses political matters can do so within five minutes, and their words are instantly available to hundreds of millions of users on an equal basis with every other site.

The authors are saying there is no need to regulate online campaign speech because there is enough space on the internet for both sides to make their case at minimal cost. I agree that one of the most important goals of campaign finance regulation is to encourage fair competition. However, there is little reason to think that online communication significantly diminishes the power of accumulated wealth.

Campaign advertising on the internet is no different from advertising in any other medium. Advertising rates reflect supply and demand. The amount of ad space available in print and broadcast media is constrained by physical space and time--but the amount of valuable ad space is also finite.

Ads aren't worth anything unless the right people see them. So, advertisers pay a premium to reach large audiences with favorable demographics. Relatively few blogs and websites can deliver the exposure that advertisers want. So, we should expect campaigns with lots of money to buy up the prime spots online, just as they do in the print and broadcast media.

The whole point of campaign finance regulation is to make sure that rich campaigns don't have an overwhelming advantage over poor campaigns. A rich campaign that can afford to advertise on Kos or RedState has a huge advantage over a poor campaign that takes out the same number of ads on low traffic sites. The poor campaign can still buy a large number of ads for very little, but those ads are cheap because they are less likely to spread the advertiser's message.

What about non-ad content? The mere fact that any candidate can publish his or her message online doesn't attenuate the power of accumulated wealth in the political discourse. A rich campaign can afford to hire consultants to maximize the impact of its site, programmers to create custom software, writers to supply content, and so on. A poor campaign can put up a website or sponsor a blog, but it's still at a disadvantage compared to its rich counterpart.

As I said earlier, I haven't come to any conclusion about the merits of the Shays-Meehan Act, or campaign finance regulations for the internet in general. In their letter, Kos and Krepansky make a number of arguments against Shays-Meehan, many of which strike me as convincing. So far, I'm just objecting to the prevalent assumption that the internet magically levels the playing field for political campaigns.

Comments

[Joel Sax]

I agree with you, Lindsay. This ~is~ a tough call. Your observations about the Kos assertions ring true.

Nothing to add.

[John Stith]

I write about lots of ecommerce and the internet for a living. I've been studying the blogosphere for a while now and I think it needs to remain unregulated.

Blogs are one of the greatest freedom of speech tools in existance. As Kos and Krepansky stated in their letter, anyone can create a blog in mere minutes. While I understand and appreciate your concerns, I think the need to keep the blogs unfettered is more important in the scheme of things.

Certainly professionals can be hired to make good, effective websites and blogs, but anyone can walk into a library, sit down at a computer and go to work. With some books on page building or just surfing to see what others are doing would make help many tremendously.

I agree with you in this won't necessarily level the playing field but it's the most level it's been in a long time, if not ever. Heck, even when our nation was founded, you had to be educated and have access to printing press of some sort to be able to effectively communicate with groups. This is much better.

I don't think it's the answer to all problems. I do think it's a big step down the right road. Perhaps we need to evangelize blogs a bit more so more people know what they can do with them.

[pebird]

Keep the blogs unfettered - this was the same argument Microsoft made when they were hit with rumors of anti-trust legislation in the early 90's - "what, regulate the high-tech industry, how absurd".

The solution is not easily identifiable - the journalism aspect of blogs (everyone is now a journalist) now means either you remove current restrictions from companies such as Time Warner, impose them on everyone, or institute some kind of scale restriction/regulation, which is of course fetterment (if that is a word) of the blogs.

KOS getting in bed with organizations like redstate.org on this issue gives me the creeps - I think it is short-term opportunism surrounded by some poor arguments that Lindsey has identified.

Some kind of transparency and accountability is needed - I don't think you can do this without looking at media conglomeration & consolidation - and that will never happen with the current administration in control. I think we need to delay passage of any law - keep the status quo, as imperfect and unresolved as it is, until we have an FCC and FEC in place that has some ethics.

Blogs that accept political advertising and political consulting engagements need to be as transparent and publically disclose as much as possible, otherwise they will lose their readership's trust and could also find themselves on the wrong side of election finance law.

[John Stith]

From that standpoint, I think the election advertising should be covered more than the blogs I think. It's a tough call because what's going to have to happen is a legal distinction between types of blogs and that's going to be tough to do I think.

From that view point, this blog will fall under that category because of the "Advertise Liberally" section. Even if it doesn't advocate a particular candidate, it certainly marks a both high traffic and a particular school of thought for politics. It's aimed a liberal or progressive readers, who in many cases will be like minded on issues. If a progressive Democratic Senator from Illinois were to run an ad on the blogosphere, that agency, Blogads might be one he would consider.

I think this is going to go a bit deeper and might hit closer to home than many realize.

[Adam B.]

Hey -- I'm the guy who drafted the joint letter and that last post. Let me just suggest a few things in response to a well-thought take on these issues:

1. It's not so much that wealth has no potential power on the Internet as that it's the only medium in which free/cheap speech has any real chance of competing with it. With a free website, you can reach an infinite number of people and have a lot of impact. We simply don't have that kind of access to a mass audience through tv, print, etc -- or, at least, don't control the access.

2. Our focus the whole time has been on keeping the focus of whatever regulation does come down on the parties that are already subject to regulation -- campaigns, parties, political committees, etc. The thing we're most fighting against is a regime that sweeps new groups of unwitting speakers into registration/disclosure requirements where the needs of campaign finance reform are not served.

3. As Pebird notes, I think ultimately its up to us as readers to impose ethical standards on bloggers. We can leave a site and vote with our mouses.

[Squashed Lemon]

So far, I'm just objecting to the prevalent assumption that the internet magically levels the playing field for political campaigns.
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein at 02:02 PM in Weblogs | Permalink ~~~

But it significantly lower the barrier of entry to certain activity. (to certain target group)

eg.
-what used to be mass mailing, now is email/web forum.

-expensive target questionaire can now be web survey of some sort.

It doesn't replace everything in modern campaign. But it gives a significant new tool to connect directly to voters. Cheaper. Faster.

Internt tools to modern campaign is what direct online selling is to retailer.

It's different. Could be expensive if done wrong. But if done right, it obliterates sears catalog, K-mart, record chain store, small bookstores.

We really don't have complete pictures and techniques for internet campaigning yet, since it's so new. But it obviously has impact.

[M]

Ahh! No! Don't join the 'reformer' camp! :)

Here's the basic point.

A rich campaign can afford to hire consultants to maximize the impact of its site, programmers to create custom software, writers to supply content, and so on. A poor campaign can put up a website or sponsor a blog, but it's still at a disadvantage compared to its rich counterpart.

Let's rephrase this.

A rich NEWSPAPER can afford to hire consultants to maximize the impact of its site, programmers to create custom software, writers to supply content, and so on. A poor NEWSPAPER can put up a website or sponsor a blog, but it's still at a disadvantage compared to its rich counterpart.

And yet, your blog has traffic, and newspaper circulation is dropping.

Or this.

The mere fact that any CORPORATION can publish his or her message online doesn't attenuate the power of accumulated wealth in the BLOGOSPHERE. A rich CORPORATION can afford to hire consultants to maximize the impact of its BLOG, programmers to create custom software, writers to supply content, and so on. A poor campaign can put up a website or sponsor a blog, but it's still at a disadvantage compared to its rich counterpart.

And yet, how many corporate blogs do you read?

Communications on the internet is different than on TV, direct mail, or radio. It embeds different value to speech and promotes different models of success.

The internet doesn't 'magically' do anything, but it does change the rules quite dramatically. Denying this is silly.

[John Stith]

I think all of you have valid points. As far as campaigns go, I think that will change shortly. The big corporations are starting to figure out how this all works. In a short time, a lot of media content will be available on line, be it movies, sports, TV programs, etc. Most people who follow politics know that it's no different in many ways than marketing a new brand of cereal. So the ad campaigns will be there.

The thing about blogs is the BUZZ. Lot of things get discussed on blogs first, regardless of topic. That's the their appeal and where they will find their "model of success." Now, as someone pointed out, we do have to govern ourselves or they will eventually. But something to remember is this: political campaigns will pay heavily for blog ads. A recent ad campaign run by Audi revealed something about blogs. They spent a tremendous budget on ads. A very minute portion of that budget went to blog ads. The payoff was high. They generated a tremendous amount of traffic to their site, almost a full third of their total traffic. Politics will do the same thing.