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December 17, 2007BELTWAY BLOGROLL
FEC Rules Against Matching Web Funds
As noted in Technology Daily this morning
Federal election officials on Friday said that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards cannot match with public funds the donations he receives through the popular online clearinghouse ActBlue.
Campaigns & Elections and Wired News report that the Federal Election Commission said such donations should not be allowed to be matched with public funds because ActBlue is technically a political action committee. The ActBlue site serves as an intermediary between donors and campaigns, directing cash to candidates as contributors see fit.
The Edwards campaign said in a statement that the ruling is a disappointment to the "progressive grassroots movement" but that the campaign has the resources it needs to make its case to voters.
Bloggers actively lobbied for a different ruling. Here's a recap of some of that commentary:
-- Americablog: "This is pretty absurd, as ActBlue doesn't decide who we're going to support,and they're hardly a front for big bad wealthy corporate donors. They're not a PAC like other special-interest groups that raise money for particular candidates and raise big bucks from very influential people. ActBlue is simply a glorified version of PayPal."
-- Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos, which sent comments to the FEC: "The public-financing system is designed to let campaigns match small-dollar contributions from supporters. ActBlue helps facilitate those small-dollar contributions. There's no reason contributions via ActBlue should not count for public financing purposes."
At RedState, meanwhile, Mike Krempasky made clear that he is not working with Daily Kos this time around as he did when bloggers across the political spectrum fought blog regulation by the FEC in 2005-2006. Krempasky even chided another Republican, new media consultant David All, for siding with ActBlue on the issue.
Posted by Danny | 12:54 PM
