“Despite all of the flak about special carve-outs for certain organizations, House Democrats embraced some of the most onerous restrictions on political speech in the history of the Republic while handing out special licenses to the highest bidders,” Wilson said.
“The legislation also leaves in place the outdated blanket exemption for media organizations, which can say whatever it is they want about candidates, for or against, without any regulation or disclosure at all,” Wilson added.
According to 2 USC 431 (9) (B) (i), the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act: “The term ‘expenditure’ does not include any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication”. This media exemption to campaign regulation is reinforced in the DISCLOSE Act’s language on page 22.
“No bribery crisis of elected officials has ever emerged over editorial endorsements by newspapers or any other media outlet, and yet they have long been exempted from disclosure. Meanwhile, we assume that such a crisis exists with all other speech,” Wilson has previously stated.
After criticism from both sides of the aisle, the NRA carve-out was broadened to exempt organizations meeting the following criteria: at least 500,000 dues paying members (down from 1 million), members in all 50 states, receives no more than 15 percent of total funding from corporations or labor organizations, and doesn’t use corporate or union money to pay for campaign-related expenses.
Unions also received an exemption since only aggregate contributions of over $600 would be disclosed — most union dues are less than that.
The House vote was 219 in favor, and 206 opposed.
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