Campaign Legal Center Pushes FCC for Enhanced Ad Disclosure

The Campaign Legal Center says the Federal Communications Commission is failing to do its job, and in the process failing the American people, by not launching a rulemaking to tighten disclosure requirements for TV and radio political ads. In the wake of the Citizens United decision allowing corporations and unions to fund campaign electioneering ads (for or against a candidate) the center has been pushing the FCC to require broadcasters to identify the actual funders of SuperPACs, rather than PAC officials, when they air the ads. The rules as the FCC has interpreted them do not require such enhanced disclosures. CLC has filed complaints over allegedly insufficient disclosures, but the FCC's Media Bureau has not seen it CLC's way.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, CLC policy director Meredith McGehee says TV viewers are ill-served and misinformed by political ads, and lays the blame "squarely" on the FCC. "First, the FCC has refused to move forward on updating the regulations implementing the sponsorship identification requirements in Section 3171 of the Communications Act, which spells out the on-air disclosure requirements for sponsorship identification. Second, the Commission has allowed its Media Bureau’s misinterpretation of existing sponsorship identification requirements to stand. As a result, television viewers across the country are not accurately informed of the true identities of those sponsoring political advertisements."