We were heartened by last Friday's Thurston County Superior court rulings against the talk radio generated anti-road repair initiative, I-912.
Judge Christopher Wickham directed the initiative backers to disclose all their donors' identities immediately or forego their contributions. The group had been stalling on identifying donors they claim were held up in a PayPal refusal to give up the identities of payees.
Apparently suspicious of why these funders' names had remained hidden up so close to the deadline, the judge didn't buy their excuses. They'll reportedly have to forfeit some 20k from these mysterious donors they were unable or unwilling to name.
Nearer and dearer to our hearts was Wickham's ordering KVI Radio and Fisher Broadcasting to report the value of the two talk-show hosts' comments promoting Initiative 912.
"Each host is entitled to his own opinion on the issues of the day," Dennis Kelly, a top official at Fisher Broadcasting, KVI's parent company told AP's Dave Ammons. "We don't agree with the premise of the ruling. If the judge's ruling holds, it will have a chilling effect on talk and news shows across America."
Dennis Kelly is a blatherWatch fan, we've heard, (could be because of our hard-hitting reporting on arch-rival KIRO's problems) but he's wrong here. He and John Carlson spin this as a freedom of speech issue which it is not.
If Carlson and Wilbur had left their months of wall-to-wall daily infomercials to only "opinions on the issues," there'd be no problem. It's the organizing, strategizing, and being an on-air logistical clearing house that we always thought goes against campaign dislosure rules. We're glad the law agrees.
(I-912's consultant, Brett Bader says they're considering an appeal--if this is such a slam-dunk breech of First Amendment rights, they'll have no problem prevailing. We have a feeling, however, we won''t be hearing about this again, because this claim is cynical and bogus and made by operatives for whom the First Amendment isn't so much of a right as it is a useful political tool to be used or trod upon as needed).
Later in the day, Kelly complied with the Judge by estimating that the in-kind help was worth $20,000 to the campaign — $10,000 apiece for the two hosts for the month of May.
(Of course, there's part of April and all of June to estimate, but we're sure they'll come up with those numbers soon. (BlatherWatch noted as this campaign got started on April 28)
What we're really excited about is the apparent lowering of KVI ad rates. Our liberal candidates should now be able to buy entire talk-shows for months on end on the usually hyper-expensive drive-times at bargain basement prices.
PayPal IS the reason they could not report some of the donations. I know this for a fact, because I chose to make a donation using PayPal. I then later received an email requesting that I provide my personal information because they could not obtain it through PayPal.
Posted by: MNM | July 05, 2005 at 08:28 AM
"A unanimous Washington state supreme court ruling, issued this morning, reversed a lower court ruling that held radio commentary by Seattle's KVI-570's Kirby Wilbur and John Carlson made "in-kind" contributions when they promoted an anti-gas tax voter initiative on their shows in 2005."
Bwhahahahahahahah
Posted by: Harry | April 29, 2007 at 07:34 AM
Wow, Har, I admire your patience...you saved that "neener" for two long years..Harharhar!
Posted by: FREMONT | April 29, 2007 at 07:59 PM
Freemont, don't you have better things to do with your time than hang out on this blog site so much? Why don't you get a fuckin life?
Posted by: Grace | April 29, 2007 at 08:03 PM
Oh the irony.
Posted by: cowpotpi3 | April 30, 2007 at 08:39 AM