Supreme Court's McCain Feingold Ruling 6/25/07

[austinphish]

The Supreme Court ruled the portion of the McCain Feingold law which limited advertisements sponsored by entities who otherwise can't contribute to campaigns, unconstitutional.

The Cato institute liked the ruling today, but my initial reaction is that they only ruled on the part of the law that would help special interest groups/big money candidates.

[micahnelson]

To me, any weakening of that law is a step in the right direction. It also brings the issue up again to remind people that McCain isn't a liberty guy.

[hroos]

Isn't this good for us too? I mean now we can buy up as much advertising time on TV and other media without being involved with the campaign directly.

[austinphish]

To me, this opens the door for big special interest groups and lobbies, none of which support Ron Paul. It doesn't do anything for small time joe donor like us, and everyone who supports Paul.

Now this wouldn't be the case if we got some special interest groups or "527s" in the mix for Dr. Paul.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=1384

Technically all organizations (whether or not incorporated) that are organized and operated primarily for the purpose of directly or indirectly accepting contributions or making expenditures for influencing or attempting to influence the selection, nomination, election or appointment of an individual to a federal, state, or local public office or office in a political organization is a 527.

527 Group – A tax-exempt group organized under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code to raise money for political activities including voter mobilization efforts, issue advocacy and the like. Currently, the FEC only requires a 527 group to file regular disclosure reports if it is a political party or political action committee (PAC) that engages in either activities expressly advocating the election or defeat of a federal candidate, or in electioneering communications. Otherwise, it must file either with the government of the state in which it is located or the Internal Revenue Service. Many 527s run by special interest groups raise unlimited "soft money," which they use for voter mobilization and certain types of issue advocacy, but not for efforts that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a federal candidate or amount to electioneering communications.

That teaches us 2 important things:

1. Really all PACs are 527s. The diference is most PACs that we will be forming are going to directly support RP.

2. A 527 that doesn't directly advocate RP doesn't have as strict monetary limits as other PACs but they can't directly support a candidate. See - Moveon.org and Swift Vote Veterans for Truth.

I think there are many options for a theme that could be developed that pushes RP's views w/o directly saying "vote RP" and which therefore could be turned into an umlimited softmoney "527". There are actually a lot of groups in place that strongly support RP's libertarian issues, but are a single interest groups which fit this bill perfectly. Such as the Medical Marijuana community - this is their big chance to get their issue in the mainstream and have a realistic shot at a president who is sympathetic to their cause. Antiwar.com, people against the War on Drugs, smokers rights, those against the Federal Reserve etc.