‘Don't tread on my blog'

Orange County Register

Americans jealously guard their First Amendment rights to freedom of the press, religion and assembly. A free society depends on the open exchange of opinions.

Unfortunately, the California Fair Political Practices Commission has imposed an onerous new rule on political bloggers. It requires a political committee – excuse the governmentese – “to provide information when it pays a person, either directly or through a third party, to create content for a digital platform unless the content provides a clear and conspicuous statement that the committee paid the author for the content.”

Translation: The FPPC is regulating political bloggers, Facebook and Twitter posters.

An obvious objection: Given the thousands of political blogs, Facebook pages and tweeters in California, and perhaps millions of individual posts of all types, how is the FPPC supposed to monitor whether every comment is supposed to have a “clear and conspicuous statement”? And whether each statement is posted correctly? Will it hire platoons of monitors at the taxpayers' expense?

The political committees are supposed to release this information. But what's to prevent a political operative from going to a public library and blogging and tweeting from there, anonymously?

The First Amendment really is appropriate here. Numerous court decisions have allowed regulatory bodies such as the FPPC and the Federal Elections Commission to ensure that politicians aren't being bribed, and to limit political contributions in some cases. But the content of the speech always has been left unregulated, sometimes leading to the “mudslinging” many complain about.

“There's a really strong support for the ability of people to do political speech anonymously, beginning with the Federalist Papers,” James Bopp told us; he's a nationally known First Amendment attorney based in Terre Haute, Ind. We now know that the Federalist Papers, which advanced the cause of the U.S. Constitution during its ratification period, were authored by James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton.

At the same time, those who opposed the Constitution also used pen names when writing the Anti-Federalist papers.

Of course, today's blog “flaming” wars stylistically often have little in common with the erudite and polite exchanges between Federalist and Anti-Federalist. But free speech doesn't depend on matters of style.

The FPPC ruling is new. But if enforced, challenges to it are certain along First Amendment lines.

The ruling is a parting shot by outgoing FPPC Director Ann Ravel. President Obama has nominated her to the FEC, where she would regulate national campaigns. The U.S. Senate currently is considering her nomination.

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