Republicans Stumble In Bid To Flood Midterm Airwaves With Discounted Ads

from the too-bad,-so-sad dept

Back in June, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission that federal limits on coordinated expenditures by political parties violate the First Amendment. Which is every bit as stupid and corrupt as it sounds.

Previously, under the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), political parties were subjected to strict statutory caps on how much money they could spend in direct coordination with their candidates’ campaigns. The Supreme Court’s June ruling eliminated candidate contribution caps, made it much easier for rich people to flood Joint Fundraising Committees (JFCs) with cash, and basically gave a giant green light for more quid-pro quo corruption to be exploited by dark money groups.

Given the broad disparity in how much money the two U.S. parties have ($125 million for the GOP versus a bunch of debt for the mismanaged DNC) Republicans were keen to use the Supreme Court ruling to their advantage in the coming midterms, hoping to flood the airwaves with more dark money-funded agitprop than ever before in a bid to try and offset Donald Trump’s nose-diving popularity.

Hoping to embolden their plan and provide discounts, the Brendan Carr FCC’s media bureau quietly issued an announcement late last March saying they were making some changes to the FCC’s lowest unit charge (LUC) requirements governing broadcast TV political ads. The changes expanded which political entities qualified for discounted broadcast advertising rates.

Historically, a subset of political candidates were given a discounted rate on ads starting 60 days before the midterms (generally the lowest rate any advertiser has to pay during that block of time). The Supreme Court and FCC collaborated to extend that discount to effectively all dark money political groups and JFCs, giving the GOP a massive advantage in midterm messaging and spending.

But things have since gotten slightly more complicated for Republicans.

Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic Commissioner (because Republicans refuse to fill the other empty Democrat seat), issued a statement this week belatedly blasting the Carr FCC for expediting America’s steady decline at the hand of billionaire donors and political corruption:

“In the final stretch of a national election, this FCC is unleashing a flood of coordinated
campaign money into broadcast advertising, just as the Supreme Court has cleared the way
for unlimited coordinated spending between parties and candidates. This unprecedented,
last-minute decision gives the biggest political spenders an even bigger advantage over
everyone else by expanding the candidate-only discount established by law to joint
fundraising and party committees, an advantage that will make it hard for anyone else to
catch up before Election Day.

According to Gomez, Carr’s FCC also made the changes with all the transparency you might expect:

This decision was made behind closed doors by agency staff, not by the full Commission, and it contradicts what this administration itself told the Supreme Court less than a year ago about who qualifies for this discount. In direct conflict with the administration’s position, the FCC relies on alleged staff-level guidance that was never provided in writing and that nobody could find, and adopted it with no opportunity for the public to weigh in. The American people should not have sweeping election-year rule changes forced on them in the dark, on the eve of an election, without a single opportunity for public input.

But there’s some new bad news for Brendan Carr and the Republican midterm agitprop machine: Sen. Jon Ossoff, Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet and Senate candidates Roy Cooper and Sherrod Brown filed a lawsuit last June attempting to stop the FCC. And this week, The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals sided 2-1 with the four Democrats, temporarily suspending the FCC effort:

“The [lowest unit charge] requirement and campaign finance statutes are clear that neither political parties nor joint fundraising committees with non-candidate members can be entitled to the LUC.”

The court found that the Carr FCC also basically ignored numerous complaints by broadcasters and politicians about the unfairness of the discounted ad rate plan:

“Despite the time-sensitive nature of these proceedings, the Commission intentionally took no action and offered no response to the Application for more than three months. The Commission did not, for example, seek responses from impacted parties, or engage in fact finding, or secure supplemental briefing, or solicit public comment, or schedule or conduct an oral argument.”

Funny, that.

Republicans will inevitably appeal. Though the Republican effort to get highly discounted rates for their midterm agitprop campaigns has stalled out at an inopportune time (for them). But overall, the general direction of U.S. lobbying and corruption safeguards generally has only been headed one direction, with fairly ugly and obvious results everywhere you look.

Filed Under: advertising, airtime, anna gomez, brendan carr, broadcasters, corruption, dark money, fcc, jon ossoff, kristen mcdonald rivet, lowest unit charge, midterms, political advertising, politics, proaganda, roy cooper, sherrod brown, tv