I think the Patterico Pledge is basically the right idea. Patterico pledges, and urges his readers to pledge, the following:
If the FEC makes rules that limit my First Amendment right to express my opinion on core political issues, I will not obey those rules.
My only concern with a pledge like this is that it’s too broad. Existing FEC rules already limit our First Amendment rights to express our opinions on core political issues in other fora; are we supposed to go out and violate those rules, or only new ones applicable to blogs? The FEC has yet to propose a single rule that would affect blogs, but if/when they do, then what? It’s almost a given that any such regulations will limit our rights to express our opinions on core political issues some, but it remains to be seen how, or how much. A flat rule treating links to candidates as in-kind political contributions would be insane, but what if the imputed value of a link is so low that even the normal habits of the Daily Kotze and the Puppy Blender don’t run afoul of the limits, and the rest of us could not exceed these limits if we tried? Or what if they came up with a more sensible rule declaring links worthless non-contributions unless they are done with the specific intent to assist a candidate or a political organization’s fundraising efforts, and then valued them according to a conservative projection of how much of money the link is likely to raise for them, or the amount actually raised as a result of the link, whichever is less?
Breadth concerns aside, I do think the basic idea behind the Patterico Pledge is sound, and am therefore prepared to take a slightly modified version of said pledge.
If the FEC makes rules that unreasonably limit my First Amendment right to express my opinion on core political issues, I will not make any special efforts to obey those rules, and if given a reasonable opportunity to violate them, I will do so.
If that sounds too watered down, oh well. I’d rather make a lesser promise that I’m pretty sure I can keep than a greater promise I will likely have to renege on later. Nevertheless, I hate to take something away without giving anything back in return, so here’s my additional pledge. My thought is that if the FEC really does go overboard in the manner FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith suggested it might, the best way to fight back may be to not only violate the law left and right, but to flood the FEC with morally frivolous but legally meritorious complaints about ordinary political bloggers doing ordinary political blogging. However, I don’t want any innocent non-participants pulled into the dragnet against their will. Instead, I’d suggest we form some kind of club, whose members not only allow each other to rat them out, but actively encourage it, from members and non-members alike. Maybe someone more artistic than I could devise a cute logo with a caption along the lines of “Political Blogmartyr,” “Report a Crime in Progress,” “Make My Day, Call the FEC,” or some other as-yet undetermined phrase. Whatever the symbol or caption may be, it should be available to everyone who wants to display it on his blog, and it must be universally understood as an open invitation to anyone and everyone to report this person’s political acitivities to the FEC. Those filing such reports on any given blog would be encouraged, but not required, to pick out the most ludicrous and the most technical violations they can find – provided that they must in fact be violations of whatever rule the FEC ends up handing down. So here’s my second pledge:
If I choose to disobey any FEC rule that I believe unreasonably limits my First Amendment right to express my opinoin on core political issues, I will not discourage, and will in fact actively encourage, other bloggers to report these violations to the FEC.
My first pledge alone reads like Patterico-Lite, but I like to think the two together are more like Patterico-Plus. Anyone with me on this? I’m more than happy to be one of many fall guys in some stupid FEC action, but I can’t represent the entire blogosphere alone.
UPDATE: Little Miss Attilla concurs.
UPDATE x2: Roscoe and Michael dissent. That is their right, at least for now.
