There is something happening this week in Congress (I know, hard to believe). A bill call HR 1606 is coming up for a vote on Wednesday. The bill is designed to (a) protect bloggers and online political activity and (b) open large loop-holes in campaign finance law. I'm all for (a) - protecting online political activity. As for (b), I'm pretty sure that allowing more big money into the system is a bad idea - besides the obvious reasons (influence peddling) the major donor dilutes the power of the small donor. My work on the Dean campaign was about the triumph of citizens, about how if everyone participated we could be more powerful than a few large, wealthy interests.
Strangely enough, despite Markos' excellent book decrying the culture of money and corruption in Washington, DC, DailyKos persists in supporting HR 1606 - which clearly opens campaign finance loopholes that McCain-Feingold sought to close. I understand protecting online activity, especially blogging and political speech - but there is a bill that does just that, that everyone agrees is a good bill, that does NOT open loopholes in the Big Money game. I'm asking all bloggers out there to support the new bill (HR 4900), based on work done by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), which protects bloggers and online activity but doesn't do any damage to our already fragile campaign finance laws.
