SpeechNow.org has put out a web site, advertising its cause.  It says that it is a committee in limbo: frozen in place while it awaits word from the FEC on the question of whether its proposed independent activity would cause it to become a regulated political committee.  It is clear that the committee plans to organize a major communications event around its pending Advisory Opinion Request.  And this is another reason to believe that the Opinion itself will prove to be a major event, testing the boundaries of the law as it limits or affects individuals who associate independently to expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates for Federal office.

     Rick Hasen is not sure that this issue will be decided in this cycle, and he is right about that.  There is only so much time for the usual cycle of legal contention to work its way through agency and court.  The issuance of the opinion, however, will have immediate effect:  the FEC’s reasoning and its conclusion will necessarily influence the regulatory environment.  That is to say:  the law it makes may not be the last word, but it will, while it is the law, reverberate through the system.  The FEC is being asked major questions and its response cannot fail to have an impact on the regulated community.

     It is also clear that considerable resources have been committed to this proposal.  With both the Center for Competitive Politics and the Institute for Justice acting as counsel, this will be handled expertly, and resolve in the pursuit of success will not be lacking.  It is a case that exhibits the organized, experienced challenge to this law that has developed. 

     And this occurs at a time when it is cannot be said to be the conviction or crusade only of the “right.”  527 activity, after all, has been seen on both left and right, and the recent FEC enforcement actions have come pretty much in pairs, respondents on the left and the right packaged together. 

     For the campaign finance laws, this is a sensitive moment, since the parties clamoring for relief are not “big money” or “corporations,” and the interests asserted are not economic ones.  The challenge comes from individuals, and from groupings of individuals, motivated to organize as a group by ideology or political conviction and committed to acting independently of candidates or parties.

     Speechnow.Org believes that the FEC must decide:  is this activity corruptive, allowing the government to set stringent terms for their participation in the political process?

Bob Bauer