Jail Time for Below-the-Belt Campaigns?
The new Senate Democratic leadership is planning to pass campaign finance reform that would impose jail time on politicians and political groups that make moves to suppress the vote or lie about candidates.
In addition, incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this morning that he wants to take action against independent 527 groups that have become influential with negative advertising recently. Reid did not indicate what he planned to do but suggested that eliminating or greatly reducing their impact will be considered. In a breakfast meeting with reporters, Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer said new legislation would add criminal penalties for those who try to scare voters away from candidates or polls. Schumer said he wants a 10-year jail sentence for those who, for example, run robo-calls to voters' homes in an attempt to lie about opposition candidates.
"We are looking at constitutional ways" to change the rules, he said. The lawmakers indicated that the legislation would be proposed early in 2007. To help build support for the legislation, Reid and Schumer said that they are putting together a list of alleged illegal campaign tactics from the last election to cite in the law.
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