FEC decision could launch attack ads, watchdogs warn

[babylonsister]

FEC decision could launch attack ads, watchdogs warn
By Susan Crabtree
November 20, 2007


A group of election-reform advocates fear that a Federal Election Commission (FEC) decision Tuesday could lead to an onslaught of corporate and union-funded attack ads on the eve of the presidential primaries.

The FEC is scheduled to vote on rules interpreting a Supreme Court decision rendered earlier this year in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life (WRTL). The decision held that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) cannot ban corporate and union money from paying for election ads and communications 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election, as long as the ads do not directly advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate or engage in the “functional equivalent” of doing so.

The court said that an ad is the functional equivalent of express advocacy only if it is “susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.”

Advocates for upholding the BCRA were disappointed with the ruling, but they took heart that WRTL’s ads focused only on a legislative issue, not an election or candidate.

Now the FEC is under pressure to apply the decision to its rules, given that they need to be in place by early December ahead of the first presidential primaries in early January.

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http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/fecdecision-could-launch-attack-ads-watchdogs-warn-2007-11-20.html