FEC Commissioner Warns Of Government Mission Against Conservative Media

by Sam Rolley  / Personal Liberty Digest

This week, Federal Elections Commission Chairman Lee Goodman called out Democratic colleagues for making attempts to regulate book publishing by conservatives. The FEC attempts are only the latest in a series of government maneuvers to tamp down on conservative media.

The criticism came after Democrats on the FEC attempted to deny Representative Paul Ryan’s leadership PAC, Prosperity Action, the ability to buy copies of the book written by the Republican lawmaker from Wisconsin — The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea — to give away to supporters.

Washington Examiner explains:

In the case of the Ryan book, publisher Grand Central Publishing sought the broad media exemption from regulation, but Democrats rejected that and pushed for a different, commercial, exemption that imposes rules over the publisher’s politics and book pricing. Republicans went along and the commission approved that 6-0.

The commission also ruled that while Ryan can have his campaign and PAC buy books to give out, the promotion on his websites has to be limited to two sentences. There were concerns raised by Weintraub that Ryan was trying to profit off sales of the book promoted on his websites. Republicans carried that to victory in a 4-2 vote.

Goodman said the mixed decision for Ryan was another missed chance by the FEC to publicly show support for press freedom.

“By failing to affirm this publisher’s constitutional right, statutory right, to disseminate a political book free from FEC conditions and regulations, we have effectively asserted regulatory jurisdiction over a book publisher,” Goodman said.

“That failure reveals a festering legal uncertainty and chill for the free press rights of books and book publishers to publish and disseminate political books free from government regulation,” he added.

The FEC constraints imposed on Ryan are only the latest evidence of what Goodman believes is an attempt by Democrats to silence conservative voices in publishing and media.

In May, Goodman warned of Democrats’ efforts to change FEC media exemption laws that allow all forms of media to pick political favorites without worrying about complying with election regulations. The FEC chairman said that the attempts have resulted directly from the growing popularity of conservative online media.

“I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers,” he said at the time.

“The right has begun to break the left’s media monopoly, particularly through new media outlets like the Internet, and I sense that some on the left are starting to rethink the breadth of the media exemption and internet communications,” he added.

The FEC efforts to regulate media aren’t the only areas of concern for conservative publishers.

Despite the Federal Communications Commission’s 2011 announcement that the Fairness Doctrine would no longer be on the books, liberals continue to propose renditions of the obsolete law that would quiet conservative media.

And over in Congress, attempts to stifle political speech are bipartisan. Legislative proposals to define “journalist” in a media shield law that lawmakers began work on last year attempted to narrow the definition to leave out anyone not working for a traditional media outlet.