A key Democratic Federal Election Commission member promoting a plan to bar foreign-owned firms from influencing elections said it won't put any restrictions on the press, calling concerns raised that it would hit U.S. media with foreign ownership "absurd."

In a letter blasting Secrets' coverage of her proposal, Commissioner Ellen Weintraub wrote, "My proposal does not touch media entities in any way. The media's coverage of our political system is fully protected, generally by the First Amendment, and specifically by the Federal Election Campaign Act and Commission regulations. I take these protections very seriously."

Secrets, in a story headlined "FEC Dems lay groundwork to ban Fox, WSJ political coverage," noted that the proposal and the reference to "electioneering communication" could open the door to targeting media owned by foreigners, including Fox, the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

Weintraub said her broadly written rule proposal won't.

"This is (1) false and (2) absurd. My proposal deals specifically with whether U.S. corporations with foreign owners (including foreign-government owners) should be able to spend unlimited amounts of money in U.S. elections. My proposal does not provide any answers; it raises questions and, if it is approved by a majority of the Commission, will open these questions up for public comment in the hopes of writing a good agency rule that will address this topic as thoughtfully as possible," she wrote.

Republican commissioners have long been concerned that FEC Democrats are open to targeting conservative media and it has been a wedge issue between the evenly-divided commission.

At a recent meeting, Weintraub talked about media regulation, sparking new concerns.

Her letter is below.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com



