IPW Daily Report – March 30-31, 2004
"There is something ignorant in the way they
dismiss the overthrow of a brutal dictator and the
sowing of the seeds of basic human freedom in that
troubled part of the world,"
former President
George H. W. Bush said.
"We have planned to be and stay on offense for the
duration of this campaign,"
Bush campaign
spokeswoman Nicolle Devenish said. "We've
only been in a general-election dynamic for a
couple of weeks, but we're holding Senator Kerry's
feet to the fire with his own record."
"No president has ever been this negative this
early," Kerry
spokesman Chad Clanton said. "The picture
of a very negative president is not going to sit
well with voters over the long term."
"We all knew it was a threat. We really didn't
need Dick Clarke to tell us that. ... The USS Cole
had been blown up three months earlier,"
said Colin
Powell.
"Mr. Clarke resigned January 20th not of 2004, but
2003. Why did these allegations just appear last
week for the first time, that is at about the same
time he signed a multimillion-dollar contract or a
book deal that will bring multimillion dollars to
him? Just simply asking the question,"
Mr. Frist said.
"I have never seen such broad consensus on an
issue [broadcast indecent programming],"
said L. Brent
Bozell III, president of the Parents Television
Council, a conservative advocacy group.
"People have just said, 'Enough is enough. These
are our airwaves. You are violating a trust and we
have the right to knock you off for doing this.'"
"We will not be able to move on the confirmation
of judges until we are given the assurance that
they will not recess appoint future judges,
especially judges who have been rejected by the
Senate," the
South Dakota Democrat [Daschle] said.
As far as the dovetailing between Air America
Radio and Mr. Gore’s project, Mr. Franken said,
"It’s all part of the same thing. It’s fighting
back …. I think that the country—there’s an odd
idea that the mainstream media is liberal, and it
just isn’t. And I think the mainstream media has
become scared of its own shadow. Basically, their
testicles have been sucked up into their body
cavity with a slurping sound."
-- writes the NY
Observer.
Colleague questions Clarke
Gore’s cable TV station
What’s MoveOn.org up to?
Dancing on the issues
Outsourcing jobs still hot
Show me the Terrorist money
Colleague questions Clarke
The Washington Times reports that a Clinton
terrorism colleague counters Clarke’s claim that
the Bush administration didn’t take the al Qaeda
threat serious enough:
"I'm uncomfortable with the charge that somehow
the Bush people ignored or didn't treat in a
serious way the fact that this country was under
major threat from terrorist organizations," said
Coit Blacker, a former National Security Council (NSC)
official who was special assistant to President
Clinton.
"I just don't think that's right," Mr. Blacker
said. "They may not have been sufficiently
attentive to what Dick thought they needed to
know, but that's not the same thing as taking a
cavalier attitude toward the threat."
Gore’s cable TV station
The NY Observer reports that Al Gore’s group has
their cable station deal:
The Observer has learned that former Vice
President Al Gore and business partner Hyatt, an
entrepreneur and Democratic fund-raiser, will
close the deal to pay around $70 million to
French-owned Vivendi Universal this week, making
them the owners of the tiny digital-cable channel
Newsworld International (NWI), moving Mr. Gore
from politics to mini-media-moguldom
However, this move might not be what liberals have
been hoping for in terms of a response to Fox
News:
Sources close to Mr. Gore insisted that his new
cable network wouldn’t be a liberal answer to Fox
News, as some had reported and even hoped. But
everyone seemed to agree that the channel would be
a 24-hour news, documentary and public-affairs
channel geared toward kids in their 20’s, with a
scrappy, Dogme 95 news philosophy that would arm
kids with cheap digital cameras and empower them
to do an end run around the big media. As The
Observer reported last year, Mr. Gore’s
principal business partner, Mr. Hyatt, purchased a
Web site called V.tv from the .tv Corporation in
April of 2003, prompting speculation that Mr.
Gore’s channel would be called VTV. The company’s
Web site listed Mr. Hyatt, who teaches business at
Stanford University, as the representative of Mr.
Gore’s holding company, INDTV L.L.C., registered
in Stanford, Calif.
What’s MoveOn.org up to?
MoveOn.org is trying to keep their 527 nonprofit
corporation that bashes Bush going. The Federal
Communication Commission is trying to stop them.
Here is their latest appeal:
Dear MoveOn member,
Are you involved in a local or national non-profit
or public interest organization? As a leader or
board director or member? Please read this message
carefully, because your organization could be
facing a serious threat.
The Republican National Committee is pressing the
Federal Election Commission ("FEC") to issue new
rules that would cripple groups that dare to
communicate with the public in any way critical of
President Bush or members of Congress. Incredibly,
the FEC has just issued -- for public comment --
proposed rules that would do just that. Any kind
of non-profit -- conservative, progressive, labor,
religious, secular, social service, charitable,
educational, civic participation, issue-oriented,
large, and small -- could be affected by these
rules.
By the way, one thing FEC's proposed rules do not
affect is the donations you may have made in the
past or may make now to MoveOn.org or to the
MoveOn.org Voter Fund. They are aimed at activist
non-profit groups, not donors.
Operatives in Washington are displaying a
terrifying disregard for the values of free speech
and openness which underlie our democracy.
Essentially, they are willing to pay any price to
stop criticism of Bush administration policy.
We've attached materials below to help you make a
public comment to the FEC before the comment
period ends on APRIL 9th. Your comment could be
very important, because normally the FEC doesn't
get much public feedback.
Public comments to the FEC are encouraged by email
at
politicalcommitteestatus@fec.gov
Comments should be addressed to Ms. Mai T. Dinh,
Acting Assistant General Counsel, and must include
the full name, electronic mail address, and postal
service address of the commenter.
More details can be found at:
http://www.fec.gov/press/press2004/20040312rulemaking.html
We'd love to see a copy of your public comment.
Please email us a copy at FECcomment@moveon.org.
Whether or not you're with a non-profit, we also
suggest you ask your representatives to write a
letter to the FEC opposing the rule change.
Some key points:
- Campaign finance reform was not meant to gag
public interest organizations.
- Political operatives are trying to silence
opposition to Bush policy.
- The Federal Election Commission has no legal
right to treat non-profit interest groups as
political committees. Congress and the courts have
specifically considered and rejected such
regulation.
In a non-election year, this kind of
administrative overreach would never find support.
It goes far beyond any existing law or precedent.
It is a serious threat to the fundamental checks
and balances in our system. But because of an
unholy alliance between a few campaign reform
groups and GOP partisans, this rule change could
actually happen if we don't act now.
I've attached more details below, prepared by our
attorneys and by the FEC Working Group -- a group
of more than 500 respected non-profit
organizations.
If you run a non-profit, don't assume this change
doesn't apply to you. First check out the EXAMPLES
OF SPECIFIC CONSEQUENCES FOR NONPROFIT GROUPS
section below. It's outrageous.
Thanks for all you do,
Sincerely,
--Wes Boyd
MoveOn.org
March 30th, 2004
________________
EXAMPLES OF SPECIFIC CONSEQUENCES FOR NONPROFIT
GROUPS
Under the proposed rules, nonprofit organizations
that advocate for cancer research, gun and
abortion restrictions or rights, fiscal
discipline, tax reform, poverty issues,
immigration reform, the environment, or civil
rights or liberties - all these organizations
could be transformed into political committees if
they criticize or commend members of Congress or
the President based on their official actions or
policy positions.
Such changes would cripple the ability of groups
to raise and spend funds in pursuit of their
mission and could be so ruinous that organizations
would be forced to back away from meaningful
conversations about public policies that affect
millions of Americans.
If the proposed rules were adopted, the following
organizations would be treated as federal
political committees and therefore could not
receive grants from any corporation, even an
incorporated nonprofit foundation, from any union,
or from any individual in excess of $5,000 per
year:
- A 501(c)(4) gun rights organization that spends
$50,000 on ads at any time during this election
year criticizing any legislator, who also happens
to be a federal candidate, for his or her position
on gun control measures.
- A "good government" organization [§501(c)(3)]
that spends more than $50,000 to research and
publish a report criticizing several members of
the House of Representatives for taking an
all-expense trip to the Bahamas as guests of the
hotel industry.
- A fund [§527] created by a tax reform
organization to provide information to the public
regarding federal candidates' voting records on
budget issues.
- A civil rights organization [§501(c)(3) or
§501(c)(4)] that spends more than $50,000 to
conduct non-partisan voter registration activities
in Hispanic and African-American communities after
July 5, 2004.
- An organization devoted to the environment that
spends more than $50,000 on communications
opposing oil drilling in the Arctic and
identifying specific Members of Congress as
supporters of the legislation, if those Members
are running for re-election.
- A civic organization [§501(c)(6)] that spends
$50,000 during 2004 to send letters to all
registered voters in the community urging them to
vote on November 2, 2004 because "it is your civic
duty."
Other potential ramifications include the
following situations:
- A religious organization that publishes an
election-year legislative report card covering all
members of Congress on a broad range of issues
would be unable to accept more than $5,000 from
any individual donor if the report indicated
whether specific votes were good or bad.
- A 501(c)(3) organization that primarily
encourages voter registration and voting among
young people will be required to re-create itself
as a federal PAC.
- A 501(c)(4) pro-life group that accepts
contributions from local businesses would break
the law by using its general funds to pay for any
communications critical of an incumbent Senator's
position on abortion rights after the Senator had
officially declared himself for reelection more
than a year before the next election.
- A 501(c)(3) civil rights group that has been
designated as a political committee can no longer
hold its annual fundraiser at a corporate-donated
facility, and it must refuse donations or grants
from donors that have already given $5,000 for
that year.
BRIEFING ON THE PROPOSED RULE CHANGES
Under federal campaign finance laws, federal
"political committees" must register and file
reports with the FEC and can accept contributions
only from individual persons (and other federal
committees), and only up to $5,000 per year from
any one donor ("hard money"). The FEC is now
proposing to redefine "political committee" to
include any group that:
1. Spends more than $1,000 this year on
nonpartisan voter registration or get out the vote
activity or on any ad, mailing or phone bank that
"promotes, supports, attacks or opposes" any
federal candidate; and
2. Supposedly has a "major purpose" of election of
a federal candidate as shown by:
(a) Saying anything in its press releases,
materials, website, etc. that might lead
regulators to conclude that the group's "major
purpose" is to influence the election of any
federal candidate; or
(b) Spending more than $50,000 this year or in any
of the last 4 years for any nonpartisan voter
registration or get out the vote program, or on
any public communication that "promotes, supports,
attacks or opposes" any federal candidate.
What's more, any group that gets turned into a
federal "political committee" under these new
rules has to shut down all its communications
critical of President Bush (or any other federal
candidate) until it sets up "federal" and
"non-federal" accounts; and raises enough hard
money contributions to "repay" the federal account
for the amounts spent on all those communications
since the beginning of 2003.
These proposed rules would apply to all types of
groups: 501(c)(3) charitable organizations,
501(c)(4) advocacy organizations, labor unions,
trade associations and non-federal political
committees and organizations (so-called "527"
groups, as well as state PACs, local political
clubs, etc.).
The new rules, including those that apply to voter
engagement, cover all types of communications --
not just broadcast TV or radio ads -- but messages
in any form, such as print ads, mailings, phone
banks, email alerts like this one, websites,
leaflets, speeches, posters, tabling, even
knocking on doors.
The FEC will hold a public hearing on April 14 &
15. Written comments are due by April 5 if the
group wants to testify at that hearing; otherwise,
by April 9. The FEC plans to make its final
decision on these proposed rules by mid-May and
they could go into effect as early as July, right
in the middle of the election year, potentially
retroactive to January 2003.
It's clear that these rules would immediately
silence thousands of groups, of all types, who
have raised questions and criticisms of any kind
about the Bush Administration, its record and its
policies.
SOME TALKING POINTS
- The FEC should not change the rules for
nonprofit advocacy in the middle of an election
year, especially in ways that Congress already
considered and rejected. Implementing these
changes now would go far beyond what Congress
decided and the Supreme Court upheld.
- These rules would shut down the legitimate
activities of nonprofit organizations of all kinds
that the FEC has no authority at all to regulate.
- Nothing in the McCain-Feingold campaign reform
law or the Supreme Court's decision upholding it
provides any basis for these rules. That law is
only about banning federal candidates from using
unregulated contributions ("soft money"), and
banning political parties from doing so, because
of their close relationship to those candidates.
It's clear that, with one exception relating to
running broadcast ads close to an election, the
new law wasn't supposed to change what independent
nonprofit interest groups can do, including
political organizations (527's) that have never
before been subject to regulation by the FEC.
- The FEC can't fix the problems with these
proposed rules just by imposing new burdens on
section 527 groups. They do important issue
education and advocacy as well as voter
mobilization. And Congress clearly decided to
require those groups to fully and publicly
disclose their finances, through the IRS and state
agencies, not to restrict their independent
activities and speech. The FEC has no authority to
go further.
- In the McConnell opinion upholding
McCain-Feingold, the U.S. Supreme Court clearly
stated that the law's limits on unregulated
corporate, union and large individual
contributions apply to political parties and not
interest groups. Congress specifically considered
regulating 527 organization three times in the
last several years - twice through the Internal
Revenue Code and once during the BCRA debate - and
did not subject them to McCain-Feingold.
- The FEC should not, in a few weeks, tear up the
fabric of tax-exempt law that has existed for
decades and under which thousands of nonprofit
groups have structured their activities and their
governance. The Internal Revenue Code already
prohibits 501(c)(3) charities from intervening in
political candidate campaigns, and IRS rules for
other 501(c) groups prohibit them from ever having
a primary purpose to influence any candidate
elections -- federal, state, or local.
- As an example of how seriously the new FEC rules
contradict the IRS political and lobbying rules
for nonprofits, consider this: Under the 1976
public charity lobbying law, a 501(c)(3) group
with a $1.5 million annual budget can spend
$56,250 on grassroots lobbying, including
criticism of a federal incumbent candidate in the
course of lobbying on a specific bill. That same
action under the new FEC rules would cause the
charity to be regulated as a federal political
committee, with devastating impact on its finances
and perhaps even loss of its tax-exempt status.
- The chilling effect of the proposed rules on
free speech cannot be overstated. Merely
expressing an opinion about an officeholder's
policies could turn a nonprofit group OVERNIGHT
into a federally regulated political committee
with crippling fund-raising restrictions.
- Under the most draconian proposal, the FEC would
"look back" at a nonprofit group's activities over
the past four years - before McCain-Feingold was
ever passed and the FEC ever proposed these rules
- to determine whether a group's activities
qualify it as a federal political committee. If
so, the FEC would require a group to raise hard
money to repay prior expenses that are now subject
to the new rules. Further work would be halted
until debts to the "old" organization were repaid.
This rule would jeopardize the survival of many
groups.
- The 4 year "look back" rule would cause a
nonprofit group that criticized or praised the
policies of Bush, Cheney, McCain, or Gore in 2000,
or any Congressional incumbent candidate in 2000
or 2002, to be classified as a political committee
now, even though the group has not done so since
then. This severely violates our constitutional
guarantees of due process.
- These changes would impoverish political debate
and could act as a de facto "gag rule" on public
policy advocacy. They would insulate public
officials from substantive criticism for their
positions on policy issues. They would actually
diminish civic participation in government rather
than strengthen it. This would be exactly the
opposite result intended by most supporters of
campaign finance reform.
- The FEC's proposed rule changes would
dramatically impair vigorous debate about
important national issues. It would hurt nonprofit
groups across the political spectrum and restrict
First Amendment freedoms in ways that are
unhealthy for our democracy.
- Any kind of nonprofit -- conservative, liberal,
labor, religious, secular, social service,
charitable, educational, civic participation,
issue-oriented, large, and small -- could be
affected by these rules. A vast number would be
essentially silenced on the issues that define
them, whether they are organized as 501(c)(3),
501(c)(4), or 527 organizations.
- Already, more than five hundred nonprofit
organizations - including many that supported
McCain-Feingold like ourselves - have voiced their
opposition to the FEC's efforts to restrict
advocacy in the name of campaign finance reform.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Resources on FEC Proposed Rule Changes Threatening
Nonprofit Advocacy
FEC Working Group
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=14670
>From two prominent reform organizations:
Soft Money and the FEC
Common Cause
http://www.commoncause.org/news/default.cfm?ArtID=282
Public Campaign Statement regarding FEC Draft
Advisory Opinion 2003-37
Public Campaign
http://www.publiccampaign.org/pressroom/pressreleases/release2004/statement02-17-04.htm
Dancing on the issues
The speed with which the two presidential
campaigns are executing their instant response is
amazing. We are now having instant responses
receive instant responses.
Vice President Cheney presented the first salvo
concerning rising gas prices with the exposure of
Sen. John Kerry’s record and penchant for raising
taxes. Cheney pointed out that Kerry voted to
raise gas taxes three times and favored a 50 cent
gas tax hike.
Kerry is now responding with a plan to bring down
gas prices and accusing the Bush administration of
achieving the goal of losing 3 million jobs and
creating $3 a gallon gas prices.
The Bush campaign response is already on the way.
They will air a new ad on Wednesday and that ad
will feature the following line:
"Some people have wacky ideas, like taxing
gasoline more so people drive less. That's John
Kerry," the Bush ad will say.
Outsourcing jobs still hot
The USA Today poll shows that the issue of
outsourcing is an important issue in the next
election:
In the poll, 57% of Americans say the issue is
very important to them, and another 26% say it is
fairly important. Thirty percent of Americans say
they are personally concerned that they or a
member of their households might lose a job
because an employer will move the position to a
foreign country. Another 17% say they are somewhat
concerned.
USA Today also reports that President Bush has
moved into a competitive position against Sen.
John Kerry in the 17 battleground states. Bush,
after being bashed by Democrats for over a year,
has begun to fight back with ads. The remarkable
aspect is that Kerry and other Democrat groups
have equaled Bush in overall spending according to
the Wisconsin Media Project. USA attributes Bush’s
gains to his ad campaign. The poll results show
that Bush’s ads have had an effect on the race:
…A majority echoed the Bush ads' themes about the
Massachusetts senator: 57% say Kerry has changed
positions for political reasons, and 58% say their
federal taxes will go up if he's elected. And the
percentage who say he's "too liberal" has jumped
from 29% in February to 41% now.
The poll also showed deep partisan divisions on
the question of Richard Clarke’s testimony before
the 9-11 commission. Among Republicans, 83%
believe the Bush administration's testimony before
the Sept. 11 commission. Among Democrats, 76%
believe Clarke.
In addition, A 53% majority now say that the Bush
administration is "covering up something" about
its handling of intelligence information before
the attacks. Bush's approval rating on handling
terrorism dropped to its lowest level since Sept.
11, though a 58% majority still express approval.
Show me the Terrorist money
Reuters reports that the Chairman of the
Senate Finance Committee Charles Grassley and the
Committee’s ranking minority leader, Max Baucus,
cosigned a letter criticizing the Homeland
Security for inadequate efforts and coordination
in the seizing of terrorist funds.
"This same restructuring has disassembled and
scattered the government's apparatus to detect,
investigate and prevent financial crimes," they
wrote in a joint letter to Bush.
And:
"While we struggle over how to restructure our
agencies, they're squirreling away money to fund
their attacks. Shutting down terrorism financing
must be an urgent and high priority," Grassley
said in a statement.
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