Does Daily Kos "get" Stephen Colbert ?

by Adam B
Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 04:44:42 PM EDT

Oh, sure, you thought it was all cute and funny that Stephen Colbert is planning a bid for the 2008 presidential nomination of both parties (at least in South Carolina). Then they called in us lawyers, and thanks to us (well, thanks to the law, which we're trying to explain) it's a mess. Let me elaborate.

As you may recall, it's basically illegal for corporations to get involved in express advocacy on behalf of candidates for office unless you fit under the "media exception," the same regulation which protects this site's campaign-related speech while being owned by an LLC. General Electric, as a corporation, can't just spend corporate funds promoting candidates for federal office; however, to the extent that its NBC News subsidiary counts as legitimate "media," then its "news, commentary and editorial" is exempt from campaign finance law.

Unless, that is, if the media entity in question is owned or controlled by a candidate, party or political committee. The RNC can't make an end-run around campaign finance law just by buying a cable channel. So, with Colbert, the question is "what's the entity?" If it's the whole Comedy Central network, he doesn't control its content; if it's "The Colbert Report," then, yes, he probably does. Now, Prof. Allison Hayward thinks that it's more likely that the network, and not merely the show, must be controlled by the candidate for this to be a problem. But that's certainly not a clear-cut issue, and prior FEC advisory opinions suggest otherwise.

For example, when the FEC allowed Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry to keep his radio show during a 1992 congressional bid, the FEC granted the exception with the understanding that......cont'd