Just when you thought the Federal Election Commission had it out for the blogosphere, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors took it up a notch and announced yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate.
Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney.
To recap, before you engage in political speech in liberal San Francisco you may be required to register with the government, pay the government a fee, and agree to provide information to the government regarding anyone who is exposed to your political speech. I'm just a clueless commercial lawyer, but that sounds to me like it might raise a wee bit of a constitutional problem.
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