{"id":21852,"date":"2011-06-30T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/"},"modified":"2011-06-30T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-30T04:00:00","slug":"reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/","title":{"rendered":"Reason Prevails as FEC Declines To Expand \u2018Press Exemption\u2019 for Colbert Super PAC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>June 30, 2011<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reason Prevails as FEC Declines To Expand\u00a0\u2018Press Exemption\u2019 for Colbert Super PAC<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Statement of Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist, Public Citizen<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Federal Election Commission (FEC) today rejected in part a request by Stephen Colbert, of the popular comedy show, \u201cThe Colbert Report,\u201d to expand the reach of the \u201cpress exemption\u201d under campaign finance law.<\/p>\n<p>The FEC approved a modified version of the Colbert Advisory Opinion request that is fairly narrow and consistent with the current press exemption. In other words, reason (and Public Citizen, which asked the agency to rule narrowly on this request) more or less prevailed.<\/p>\n<p>The agency approved Colbert\u2019s request to create a Super PAC and raise unlimited corporate donations for his committee, subject to the disclosure requirements. But media corporations, such as Viacom, may not exploit the press exemption to pay for Colbert\u2019s campaign activities beyond a legitimate news function and avoid the disclosure requirements.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>The vote was 5-to-1. Apparently, several Republican commissioners chose not to be the continuing butt of jokes about their deadlocking the agency so as to render it incapable of making decisions. Unfortunately, this new bipartisan spirit is likely to fade as soon as Colbert walks out the door.<\/p>\n<p>To read Public Citizen\u2019s letter sent to the FEC yesterday urging the agency to deny Colbert\u2019s petition, visit: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/sites\/default\/files\/colbert-letter-fec-20110629.pdf\">https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/sites\/default\/files\/colbert-letter-fec-20110629.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>###<br \/>Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/\">www.citizen.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-21852","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","tax_news-press"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Reason Prevails as FEC Declines To Expand \u2018Press Exemption\u2019 for Colbert Super PAC - Public Citizen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reason Prevails as FEC Declines To Expand \u2018Press Exemption\u2019 for Colbert Super PAC - Public Citizen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Statement of Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist, Public Citizen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Public Citizen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/publiccitizen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/public_citizen_shared_link.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Public_Citizen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/\",\"name\":\"Reason Prevails as FEC Declines To Expand \u2018Press Exemption\u2019 for Colbert Super PAC - Public Citizen\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-30T04:00:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Reason Prevails as FEC Declines To Expand \u2018Press Exemption\u2019 for Colbert Super PAC\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/\",\"name\":\"Public Citizen\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Reason Prevails as FEC Declines To Expand \u2018Press Exemption\u2019 for Colbert Super PAC - Public Citizen","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Reason Prevails as FEC Declines To Expand \u2018Press Exemption\u2019 for Colbert Super PAC - Public Citizen","og_description":"Statement of Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist, Public Citizen","og_url":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/","og_site_name":"Public Citizen","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/publiccitizen\/","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":628,"url":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/public_citizen_shared_link.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@Public_Citizen","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/","url":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/","name":"Reason Prevails as FEC Declines To Expand \u2018Press Exemption\u2019 for Colbert Super PAC - Public Citizen","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-06-30T04:00:00+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/reason-prevails-as-fec-declines-to-expand-press-exemption-for-colbert-super-pac\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Reason Prevails as FEC Declines To Expand \u2018Press Exemption\u2019 for Colbert Super PAC"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/","name":"Public Citizen","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}