How does an ad seller know whether an ad buy is "political"? Requiring the seller to keep records seems reasonable, but requiring the seller to make records, does not. That is, an ad seller ought not be expected to know which incoming buys are political. That ought to be the responsibility of the buyer/"creatives" to declare.
Because the buyers are all registered political entities: candidates' campaigns, political action committees, etc. It's illegal for a "regular person" to go buy political ads and not register with the state.
I don't know what to tell you, other than that the Public Disclosure Commission and the Fair Campaign Practices Act have been Washington state law since the early 1970s.
I don't know what to tell you either, but the authors of the First Amendment had some pretty strong ideas on the subject about 200 years before that. They didn't seem quite as ambivalent on the subject as most people here. I wonder why?
Is a law prohibiting me from secretly giving an elected official a briefcase full of one million dollars constitutional? If so, why is it not the same if there's a law that says I can't secretly provide $1,000,000 in services to the same elected official in the form of political advertising?
The authors of the U.S. Constitution had some pretty strong ideas on the idea of bribery; in fact, it's explicitly listed in Article 2, Section 4 as an impeachable offense. The public has a right to know when its politicians and government officials are receiving money (or goods and services) from outside entities.
That would fall under the category of fraud, which is not considered protected speech.
Political speech, on the other hand, is exactly what the framers of the Constitution had in mind. You cannot have a participatory democratic republic without it, any more than you can defend one without arms.
Disagree? Great, there's a process in place for amending the Constitution. We should either follow the process or follow the document. Those are the only legitimate options.
