Off the Beat: When Is a Candidate a Candidate?
In the Federal Election Commission’s eyes, former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann became a congressional candidate on Sept. 8, 2011, when the commission received his .
So why is it that another federal agency 鈥斅爐he Federal Communications Commission 鈥斅爈ooks to the state, not the federal government to determine whether he is officially in the race?
The question emerged in Civil Beat’s exploration of whether Hannemann’s weekly radio show violates FCC regulations about equal time, now that he is running for Congress.
A Federal Communications Commission staffer said that Hannemann’s federal declaration that he’s running has “nothing to do with” the Federal Election Commission’s test for when someone is considered a “legally qualified candidate.”
That only happens when Hannemann registers with the state, which would be in February 2012 at the soonest.
If the federal agencies tasked with regulating candidates’ behaviors during campaigns can’t even agree upon when a candidate becomes a candidate, how is the public supposed to make sense of the rules?
The current approach makes the rules seem arbitrary.
