Campaign finance reform advocates are worried that Stephen Colbert’s SuperPAC shtick may open the door to some real abuses by the corporate-owned press depending on how the FEC rules.
For its part, the commission has been treating Colbert’s request like any other. It’s created some quirky moments, like when Colbert had to assure the commission that the cash he collected outside their office was “received by Mr. Colbert personally as payment for shaking his hand” and wasn’t going to his yet-to-be-formed “super PAC.”
Ultimately, if they follow the suggestions of their staff, the FEC seems set to let the Colbert Super PAC go forward one way or another. The commission will consider one of three draft opinions authored by their staff, all of which appear to let Colbert’s parent company Viacom pay for the Colbert Super PAC’s expenditures without having to publicly report their donations.
That’s a move that has campaign finance reformers worried. Public Citizen wrote a letter to the FEC on Wednesday calling on the commission to reject the request.
“This would carve out a gaping loophole in campaign finance laws, allowing any company involved in media to foot, in secret and without limit, the electioneering expenses of political committees,” Public Citizen’s government affairs lobbyist Craig Holman said in a statement.
Holman warned that if the FEC granted Colbert’s request, “the next request will be for media companies to directly finance unlimited candidate campaigns under the press exemption – an abuse that is already being advocated in some quarters.”
Now, nobody does satire like Colbert. The whole point of satire is to play the absurd straight and let the unintentional humor shine through. And I honestly think Public Citizen is overreacting. Colbert is clearly drawing attention to corporations and their control over media influence and elections, which seems to be the entire point of the exercise. Yes, if media corporations are allowed to use the press exemption to get around campaign finance laws, it would be a disaster (what campaign finance laws we have left, anyway.) But there do seem to be some potentially ugly ramifications here if the FEC approved Colbert’s PAC as is.
I personally think the FEC understands this and will not approve Colbert’s request for precisely that reason. The press exemption is pretty ludicrous, and needs to be examined. Colbert I believe is using this farce to force the FEC to erect some strict barriers on using the press exemption and spell them out in the campaign finance rules. The whole point is for Colbert to play all this out by drawing attention to just how ludicrous it all is on its face. He does it daily.
At least, I hope that this is where all this is going. If the FEC says “Hey sure, press exemption, whatever, go for it media conglomerates!” then the joke’s truly on us.
(Cross-posted at ZVTS)
[UPDATE 12:10 PM] Well. Looks like it’s a moot point as the FEC has in fact approved Colbert’s PAC as is. (h/t The Moar You Know)
cleek
unfortunately, he picked such an arcane and dull topic, that it’s just not making the funny.
balconesfault
Even if FEC approves and sets a precedent – Colbert has done a valuable service.
Because right now thanks to a handful of very diligent GOP operatives, finance laws are being challenged on all fronts. The public needs to understand this – and Colbert succeeding and making a big deal about it has a better chance of driving into the public consciousness just how in the tank for Corporate America the FEC and the Courts are right now than a lot of bloggy and lawyerly discussions of various rulings.
At some point the public becomes incensed over Corporate media control over the process … or they don’t. But the Corporate media certainly isn’t going to try to frame it for them.
Han's Solo
balconesfault @ 2
What you said + 1
Martin
I don’t understand the rationale here. How can getting approval for something, with more public attention than that thing would normally warrant, open it up to ‘real abuses by the corporate press’. The corporate press would be doing it anyway, without Colbert, and would be doing it without anyone being the wiser. What do watchers expect to happen – have one corporate media outlet hire all of the Democratic presidential nominees and pay them directly into their SuperPAC in order to game the election cycle against the Republican? Yeah, right. That’d never happen.
NonyNony
Actually I don’t see this as a satire at all – Colbert is just pushing to extremes what the corporate operatives are doing more slowly. He’s performing a valuable service – by leapfrogging over them he might actually go into “outrage” territory where people realize what’s going on and get pissed about it. Corporate operatives have been pushing things slowly precisely so they don’t generate backlash. By making it more “in your face” Colbert either gets the FEC to set hard limits via precedent OR gets them to admit that there are no real limits – which hopefully will generate some outrage. Either way it’s a service – better to know that the FEC really doesn’t think this is a problem now and have people get mad about it than to have it slowly revealed over a period of years so that people just shrug and think “huh – I thought that was the way it worked anyway, no big deal.”
I mean, they may think that already. But better to find that out now and know what you’re up against than to spend the next decade not knowing exactly what you’re fighting against.
Poopyman
@balconesfault and @Han’s Solo, ditto.
If in fact Colbert can highlight a gaping hole in finance laws, that creates an opportunity for congress to plug it.
I call it a feature, not a bug, in Colbert’s actions.
(Clearly, congress doesn’t have to plug a hole, but if it was never highlighted it would never get plugged.)
Violet
Like others above have said, all this would be happening anyway, but it’s dull and boring and no one would be paying attention to it. And the corporate media sure wouldn’t discuss it on their shows. Colbert is shining a light on it and bringing a lot of attention to it. I’m all for it. More light is better. Thank you, Stephen Colbert.
And if he gets approval for it, let the fun begin. I can only imagine the ridiculous stuff he’ll do on his show, which will only serve to shine more of a light on our terrible campaign finance laws. Keep it up, Stephen.
Davis X. Machina
In Max Headroom‘s world, Congressional representation was by network and by viewership, not by district and by population, and reapportionment happened every sweeps week.
Twenty minutes into the future, indeed.
Dollared
Let’s call it what it is – the Berlusconi exemption.
Zandar
It’s not that what Colbert is doing is wrong, it’s that the FEC is actually this filled with crap.
Valdivia
They just ruled for him. Just wow. We really are at the end of the Republic.
Zifnab
Colbert had a parade of FOX News contributors basically trampling all over the FEC regulations to no consequence. The difference between Colbert and Dick Morris is that Colbert is *actually* asking permission before using air time to promote his cause.
Colbert is forcing the issue on the FEC and visibly creating a precedent. If he gets shut down, the FEC will be called out as issuing a double-standard. If he gets through, nothing has changed except the FEC acknowledging that it has no regulatory authority worth mentioning.
The Moar You Know
Kinda hope he gets it, and brings the current de facto arrangement out into the open.
Shinobi
Now it’s time for congress to actually make some laws to shut him down. He should make a serious nuisance of himself if they wont.
The Moar You Know
OH FUCK. Be careful for what you wish for, you just might get it.
Paula
Colbert is educating millions of people in a very effective way. Frankly, I’ve learned a lot since he has taken on this issue.
me
Trevor Potter, his lawyer, is an advocate for campaign finance reform so there’s clearly an agenda here. I’m sure the ads he makes will be gold.
Three-nineteen
Wasn’t Rove already basically doing this without asking the FEC’s permission?
Poopyman
@Moar:
Fuck not, my friend. This is awesome and excellent in so many ways. The first, to happen soon, is to see how the MSM completely misses his larger point. I can only imagine what other heads in DC will essplode over this.
aisce
hmm, yes, isn’t it funny how people always do things for the reason you’d like them to do? that’s the way it works, right?
like, colbert is doing all of this as a complicated 11-dimensional chess game to achieve an outcome that makes zandar happy. surely.
because the other alternative is a not-nearly clever enough comedian is pushing a joke in a context he doesn’t fully understand, while republican operatives hold his hand, and the whole thing could have wildly unpredictable consequences. and that would make zandar unhappy. so it can’t possibly be that.
glad we got that cleared up.
TooManyJens
aisce, do you really think Republican operatives need Stephen Colbert to find or create loopholes in campaign finance law for them?
YellowDog
I’ve assumed all along that Colbert’s primary target was Fox, with talk radio a secondary target. Fox is an informercial for conservative candidates (complete with phone numbers to call). Colbert wants to be slapped down, and hard (like any good conservative would), to force the FEC’s hand (so to speak). We won’t see the return of the fairness doctrine, but perhaps we will see a villager make the connection between Colbert and Fox. Or maybe not.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
IIRC, the whole reason why Colbert started this SuperPac was because he did a story about other PACs that were already skirting the law, his character saw this loophole, decided to exploit it publicly, on the TeeVee, showing how absurd it is.
The fact that a liberal comedian has exploited this loophole is the only way “very serious pundits” in the media will ever give this coverage. Seriously, I can’t wait for the Terry Gross interview with Steven.
Leah
Thanks Zandar for the perspective; of course it’s satire. The first time he went to DC with his “lawyer,” and held that press conference outside the building housing the FEC, he invoked the historic memory of George Washington all those years ago, standing in the same spot about to file his own papers for his own Super Pac. And his audience got the joke, as do the studio audiences get the satirical thrust of all the separate pieces he’s done on this subject, which generally always include a reference to the Citizens United court decision. And the notion that major corporations and its minions need any help from Steven Colbert to thoroughly fuck over the entire electoral structure of our democracy is just pure nonsense.
Joel
@ aisce
Frankly, in a battle of wits, I don’t think you’d stand a chance against said “not-nearly clever enough comedian”….
tde
“If the FEC says “Hey sure, press exemption, whatever, go for it media conglomerates!” then the joke’s truly on us.”
The joke was already on us, Colbert is doing everyone a favor by letting you in on it.
TooManyJens
This.
amk
@ zandar – Do you always make it a point to miss the point ? And what a way to concern troll about how colbear is letting the country down. Look around you for real clowns who are leading amurika off the ledge. Sheesh. what a stupid FP.
some other guy
I’m praying to FSM that Colbert takes this to the next level, using his show to raise ungodly amounts of unregulated and unreported cash and then running bitingly satirical campaign ads across the country during the 2012 cycle to really highlight the ridiculousness of current campaign finance law.
trollhattan
Agree with the others who think Colbert (and his eternally bemused Republican lawyer sidekick) is doing us a tremendous favor shining light on this very large turd of a loophole [find the mixed metaphor]. Now we need to sprinkle some Tussin on it and get Congress to reel in Citizens United. (Oh crap, just pulled a muscle laughing at myself.)
Back to Colbert: he’s managed to take an inherently dull and arcane topic and make it understandable. His kid-in-a-candyshop-with-dad’s-AmEx response to the possibilities of a superPAC is perfect.
Mark D
Holy shit … they approved it?! Really?!
They didn’t get the joke, did they? They totally missed the point of what he was trying to do, and have now opened the door for the media to control our elections in ways they’ve only dreamed of in the past.
Those of us who aren’t financially loaded are fucked. Truly. Utterly. Fucked.
Poopyman
@Mark D:
They don’t give two shits about a joke. They are constrained by law. Or in this case, disturbingly unconstrained, which is the whole point.
nogo postal
What will the first commercials look like..
Maybe vampire teachers .. or Exxon-Mobile with a cardboard sign on a street corner?
b-psycho
ColbertSuperPAC.com still says they can’t take unlimited donations. I take it they just haven’t updated the site yet.
Catsy
I think the best analogy to what Colbert is doing is probably white (or possibly grey) hat hacking. The black hats (Fox and the GOP) are already exploiting this “hack” as much as they can, and don’t need anyone else’s help figuring out how to do it–it’s just that most people don’t realize the full scope of how vulnerable our system really is.
What Colbert has done is made everyone aware of the vulnerability in a dramatized way without causing any actual damage the way Fox and the GOP do, hopefully with the end result of shining enough sunlight on the problem that it will have to be addressed.
You can like what hackers do or not, but there’s no denying that when they highlight a serious security hole, they get shit fixed in a hurry.
Heliopause
“This would carve out a gaping loophole in campaign finance laws…”
What an incomprehensibly stupid statement. If a comedian opens a “gaping loophole” it already existed, moron. This is akin to sending fake bombs through airport security and then blaming the people who performed the test.
Public Citizen and like-minded have had almost four decades to fix this and it just gets worse every year. They’ve failed on a Dubya Bush scale. Sadly, we’re to the point as a nation that only comedians can save us. Let Colbert take a crack at this.
evinfuilt
@ some other guy
I’d be absolutely shocked if Colbert doesn’t do stuff like that. Guns, Gold and Goats!!! Where Colbert goes from here will be fantastic to see. Every FEC loophole will be obvious to everyone, and maybe, just maybe, something will happen.
me
@b-psycho:
Now it does.
b-psycho
That was quick.
From the sounds of it, they didn’t get the expanded press exemption, so if any staff from the show are involved the ads can only run during his show w/o disclosure. I’m assuming this means either he’ll be showing the ads on his show a lot, or he’ll have to hire outside people to do them.
artem1s
maybe ridiculous but do you think this might lead to the next Supreme nomination asked questions about whether s/he thinks money is speech or if corporations have the same rights as individuals?
finally, a subject that might push the Godbotherers out of the limelight. FTW+
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
@b-psycho: The article I read said that ads “for” the pac could only be run during his show, not “by” his pac. I don’t know if it was a poorly written article, or just unclear.
Poopyman
trollhattan
@38.artem1s
Good point and I’d think the answer is a strong yes. Of all the nails in the coffin of corporate limitations, Citizens sticks out the farthest. The sadder reality is we’re unlikely to see Obama nominating anybody to replace one of the four conservative henchmen. Erstwhile “swingman” Kennedy is more likely to retire than any of those others, and we’d best keep the Senate on the “D” side in the meantime.
trollhattan
Also, too: Anybody hear Colbert’s Grover Norquist clip played on Morning Edition today? It was when he surrendered granny to tax purity rather than approve a top-tier tax increase. I didn’t hear the rest of the story, so don’t know in what context they were using it.
Watching the interview I was flabbergasted at how anybody can be so calm and dogmatic at the same time. Why does anybody give him the time of day?
Pococurante
Always possible the FEC passed it this quickly because they too are desperate for someone to pay attention at how much rigged elections are becoming.
Caravelle
Yeah, I don’t think the joke’s on us here, or at least if it is it isn’t Colbert’s fault. Basically, if this huge loophole exists, do we think for two seconds that actual candidates and corporations with armies of lawyers wouldn’t find it ? It’s not like Colbert is telling *them* something they didn’t know. This way at least we are made aware that the loophole exists.
Whether this awareness will translate to action though, I don’t know. This isn’t something Colbert can do that much for. But he certainly isn’t hindering anything.
I might be worried about the conservatives who watch Colbert and don’t realize it’s an act who’d sincerely think the loophole is an awesome thing, but… people who enjoy Colbert while thinking it isn’t an act. Srsly. What is there to expect from that demographic ?
Poopyman
@Caravelle:
Find it? Who the hell do you think wrote it in the first place?
WereBear
Big. Brass. Ones.
balconesfault
If you really believe that Colbert is opening up a loophole – you must have absolutely no clue as to the current work (and successes) of James Bopp, Jr., Esquire and his law firm.
JWL
Isn’t it obvious? Colbert was raised in South Carolina, the cradle of the Confederacy.
He is the world’s first Manchurian Comedian.
Annamal
I have this image of all the republican candidates trembling just a little at the prospect of get Colbert’s “support”.
Something like the Whitehouse correspondent’s dinner speech but played as an ad during prime time could be devastating.
The only question is who get his “help” first, Santorum and Bachman seem like obvious candidates but my bet would be Mitt Romney’s corporate history writ large (Colbert’s show was the first place I heard about it).
Rihilism
If I understand correctly what was said on NPR just now, Colbert was granted the SuperPAC, but the media exemption for Viacom was not approved (despite a Repub on the FEC who wanted to grant that exemption to Viacom). Is that correct?
cortana
That is correct, it was not approved. Another attempt by a republican lawyer was also denied. The FEC seems to have read this in the right way.
me
Sort of. It seems he can’t have his own employees while they are paid by Viacom do work for the PAC (create ads that would be shown on television other then during his show) as that would be considered a donation from Viacom that will be treated as a donation under the regular PAC rules. Presumably, he could pay his employees from PAC funds while they do work for the PAC. They’d probably have to use equipment not owned by his show or maybe pay Viacom rental costs.
William Hurley
Does any actually believe that the master rat-fuckers serving the power lust of corporatists (unbound to political geography) need Colbert to provide them with yet another way to maximally exploit “freedom” bequeathed them by the Falangist wing of the SCOTUS?