ARRRGGGHHH!!

ARGH!!!!!! No, No, No, NO. I am like Allison on this one, in that I am exhausted with explaining what is going on. But in Yet another screed against 527 Organizations, the Washington Post Editorial Board is calling the FEC a bunch of reluctant regulators, because they don't regulate 527 orgnaizations the way the Post and reform groups want.

THE INDEPENDENT political groups known as 527s are a new force in American politics. Deeming themselves unfettered by the contribution limits that prevent regular political committees from taking six- and seven-figure donations, such groups spent $400 million during the 2004 campaign. In the face of this political spending spree, the Federal Election Commission washed its hands of any attempt to write rules governing their behavior.

Let us dispense with some misconceptions.

First, the 527 groups did not "deem" themselves anything. Congress wrote the law that placed them in a different regulatory framework than normal political committees. 527s are simply following the law as written. If the law is faulty, fine, Congress can fix it. It is not the FEC's duty to correct Congressional mistakes--they are regulators not legislators.

Second, the 527 roups are not unregulated or unaccountable. Each 527 organization must file reports with the IRS. Just go look up all the reports called Form 8872 on the IRS website. So, there is at least some public accountability on these committees. There are rules on their operation and it is up to the IRS not the FEC to enforce those rules.

Third, the FEC is not "reluctant" on this score. The law that set up 527 organziations, incidentally, written by Congress, did not put the regulatory oversight onto the FEC, but the IRS. Congress could have easily said, "The FEC will regulate these entities" and the FEC would have been duty bound to regulate the entities. The Post and the Reform Community need to look a little more carefully at the law.

Bob Bauer is right,

It is the wrong kind of speech—unhealthy not because any threat of bribery or its approximation, but because our political choices should not be made by this kind of speech. The Post, in short—like other critics of 527s in the press—prefers a speech more balanced, more objective, more responsible.

This may be a bit of a misstatement by Bauer. The Reform Community doesn't want a more objective or responsible or balances speech, they want political speech to be done within a certain sphere and nowhere else. Thus, if the speech is not done by the political parties or by candidates (subject to strict monetary limits or by public financing) then the speech is out of bounds.

While the FEC does have a lengthy enforcment docket, that could be resolved by Congress by giving the FEC a budget worthy of its mission. Something that the reform community could lobby for, but won't. It is far easier to bash the FEC for inefficiency rather actually helping make them more efficient.