Democrats defeat election-law aid for bloggers

[crikkett]

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Published: November 2, 2005, 7:55 PM PST
Democrats defeat election-law aid for bloggers

...The vote tally in the House of Representatives, 225 to 182, was not enough to send the Online Freedom of Speech Act to the Senate. Under the rules that House leaders adopted to accelerate the process, a two-thirds supermajority was required...

...The Federal Election Commission is under court order to finalize rules extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet. Unless Congress acts, the final regulations are expected to be announced by the end of the year. (They could cover everything from regulating hyperlinks to politicians' Web sites to forcing disclosure of affiliations with campaigns.) ...

... Previous Next Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat, said that if the bill were approved, the public would have "no idea whether Internet campaign ads are being financed by secret soft money." Soft money is a general term referring to funds not regulated by election laws.

The House reform proposal, only one page long, simply says that the portion of federal election law that deals with publications aimed at the general public "shall not include communications over the Internet." It may eventually receive another vote under a slower, normal procedure that requires only a majority...

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5929587.html