http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-1024385.html Spam fight divides on party lines By Declan McCullagh July 9, 2003, 8:35 PM PT (news analysis) Once thoroughly bipartisan, the debate in Washington over how to reduce the flow of bulk e-mail is pitting Democrats against Republicans, a development that threatens to complicate enactment of laws regulating spam. Politicians on Capitol Hill have realized that their constituents are fed up with the ever-increasing deluge of unsolicited e-mail, and most legislators appear to favor Congress taking some sort of action. But disagreements about what action is wisest have erupted along traditional political fault lines that pit Republican values against those cherished by Democrats. On Wednesday, bickering erupted during a meeting of two House Energy and Commerce subcommittees over which of two bills--one backed largely by Democrats and one supported almost entirely by Republicans--would do a better job of reducing spam and punishing spammers. [...] One complaint Stupak lodged against the Republican-backed rival bill is that it expressly prohibits class action lawsuits, a favorite of trial lawyers, whose deep pockets make them hugely valued contributors to the Democratic Party. An analysis performed by Common Cause for the 2000 election cycle calculated that trial lawyers favored the Democratic Party over the Republican Party by a 40-to-1 margin for soft money contributions, giving a total of $14.5 million to the Democrats. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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