From: Cal Watch Dog.com
California’s chief political watchdog, Ann Ravel, recently announced plans to regulate political websites that accept payments from campaigns. Last year
Gov. Jerry Brown appointed her to head the Fair Political Practices Commission.
California bloggers right, left and center quickly criticized the proposal for quashing free speech and putting them at a disadvantage to out-of-state competitors.
“The Internet is global,” wrote Mark Paul on his blog,
the California Fix. “The commission’s jurisdiction is limited to California. If campaigns find it useful to make payments to online sock puppets, won’t they funnel the dollars to bloggers living outside the state? Do we want to send jobs out of California?” Paul also is the co-author of the new book, “
California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It.”