FEC Considering New Rules On Electioneering Communications
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) held a hearing on Thursday on electioneering communications (advertisements on television and radio thirty days prior to a primary or sixty days prior to a general election) enacted as part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) and partially struck down in the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, which held limits on "issue advertisements" to be unconstitutional.
According to Broadcasting & Cable, the FEC will examine whether to either (1) carve out an exemption to allow corporations and unions to directly fund issue ads within the proscribed time, including permitting a mention of the candidate's name, so long as the ad can be interpreted as addressing an issue rather than trying to elect or defeat a candidates, or (2) redefine "electioneering communications" to not include corporation or union ads at all.
The key difference is that in the first instance advertisers would have to identify the source of funding behind the ads to the FEC and on air, but not in the second. Other ads mentioning candidates would also be allowed.
The Brennan Center for Justice reported that interest groups spent $100 million in 2000 on political ads, with 72% of electioneering ads classified by the Center as "attack ads."