Serious question: Did Scott Brown’s campaign committee violate campaign finance law with their CrazyKhazei account?
The reason I ask is that I am so used to seeing the disclaimers on political ads like “Paid for by the XYZ Committee” or “I’m John Doe and I approved this message” – it seems like @CrazyKhazei may have needed one.
Brown paid Fehrnstrom this year, and Brown paid Rob Willington this year. Both were involved in CrazyKhazei. I think it’s been made pretty clear that this was likely a Brown campaign strategy of some sort with two high-paid Brown consultants in on it. Doesn’t that mean that Brown paid for the @CrazyKhazei account and updates?
Here’s the Federal Election Commission’s “Basic Rule” on when a disclosure is required, emphasis mine:
Basic Rule
Political Committees
Political committees must include a disclaimer on (1) all “public communications” (defined below), (2) bulk electronic email (defined as electronic mail with more than 500 substantially similar communications) and (3) web sites available to the general public, regardless of whether the communication expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate, or solicits funds in connection with a federal election (i.e., contributions for a federal candidate or federal political committee). 2
Twitter’s a website that’s available to the general public, and CrazyKhazei was clearly advocating against Alan Khazei by mocking him and going after most of the other senate candidates, as well
There was no disclosure of any sort on the CrazyKhazei account.
Since it came from Brown’s top adviser, and it’s further linked to Brown’s campaign through Rob Willington, I hope you understand why I ask: Did Scott Brown’s campaign committee violate federal election law?
First, application of FEC rules to the internet generally remains fairly foggy.
Second, Brown’s claim is that this is not the work of the committee, but that it was Fehrnstrom alone – note the careful inclusion of the words “on his own time” in Brown’s statement. That was no accident.
I caught the “on his own time” comment, and I feel that’s BS because of the Willington connection. It seems really odd that two separate high-paid consultants would work on the same project on their own time.
Appreciate the insight on FEC law.
that they are not exactly the same project; you could do the Twitter without the domain, and vice versa.
However, it seems almost impossible to believe that Willington and Fehrnstrom were unaware of each other’s actions … two “CrazyKhazei” internet projects seems a tad more than a coincidence. Funny that Willington has so far absolutely refused to talk to anyone, despite at least two reporters’ attempts to reach him for comment (Globe’s Glen Johnson and WBUR’s Fred Thys, that I know of).
n/t
It doesn’t take long or cost much to register a domain name, so he certainly could have. Still, if the campaign paid the $14.95 (or whatever it is), that would certainly suggest otherwise.
I run my own web services firm – domain registration costs come up under Cost of Goods Sold in Quickbooks, and they are charged to the projects they belong to. Sure would be nice to see where Willington booked that domain purchase…
I’m sure part of Willington’s job is to be the expert deciding what various domain names might be of use for the campaign and registering them. He probably considers it a now standard part of modern campaigning, to have a special site devoted to tearing down the opponent’s record. Like Bobbleheadbrown.com for example. That is his specialty, to be on top of these developments in web strategy and do them for republicans.
Anyhow, CrazyKhazei is an appropriate name for a BobbleheadBrown type of website, and a pretty obvious one that Fernstrohm could certainly have also chosen also. At least they are teaching the public how to pronounce Khazei, so they don’t confuse him with Karzei, and think, oh you mean it’s like Kim Khazei? Suddenly his a contender! And if this brouhaha turned the “Elizabeth Warren will save us” celebration into a “who’s more progressive” primary fight, that makes it doubly effective.
…that this whole effort actually helped Khazei with name recognition. It’s yet another reason why this is such a miserable failure on their part, just like Tom Wesley did with his dumb-ass “Repeal Neal” web site in 2010.
Hey that reminds me, has Elizabeth Warren made an It Gets Better video yet?
When the Brown campaign bought the CrazyKhazei domain, I think that becomes a serious question. There may be some lawyer-y trickery that could make that problem go away, but give anyone the two facts that (1) a major campaign guy did the twitter and (2) another major campaign guy bought the domain, on behalf of the campaign, and I don’t think anyone could come to the reasonable conclusion that the campaign didn’t know about the twitter account.
Also, consider the fact that the candidate need know nothing for a campaign violation to take place. If the core members of the campaign knew (and by all accounts, it seems they did), that would be enough to at least make this a reasonable question.
I wouldn’t suggest that Brown would actually find himself in serious legal trouble because of this situation, particularly given your first point, but there seems more than enough to me to put the question forward, file a complaint, and let the FEC deal with it.
…even if it were fully the campaign’s work. My understanding is that the “I’m Scott Brown and I approved this message.” disclosure is required for PAID advertising, but not something like social media.
The paid media one you mention is the most well known, but, for example, the rule Chris quotes in the post specifically says that if a Political Committee is operating “web sites available to the general public, regardless of whether the communication expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate,” then disclosure is required. So if the Brown campaign was indeed operating CrazyKhazei – e.g., if Fehrnstrom was being paid for the time he spent working on it – there could be an issue there.