A just released California Fair Political Practices Commission report is now speculating on the need of that agency to regulate content of speech all across the internet, including Facebook accounts, Twitter, YouTube, and other networking sites.  The logic behind this move is that the founding fathers of political regulation in California could not "have anticipated that these types of communicating a campaign message would ever exist."   Big deal.   I’m sure Ben Franklin never contemplated gay marriage as a fundamental constitutional right, either, and that didn’t take changing the constitution.

     The regulatory posture of the FPPC is sadly going in a different direction than Federal court cases and one wonders where the dreamers-up of this type of stuff will go next.  I, for one, think outlawing tweets that contain express advocacy for or against a candidate for public office has no rational basis or legitimate state interest.  But don’t tell Judge Vaughn Walker that.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.