Has the comedy show "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) become a Political Action Committee(PAC) in disguise? Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, an organization becomes a "political committee" by receiving contributions or making expenditures in excess of $1,000 for the purpose of influencing a federal election.
No one would argue that the cost to produce just one SNL political skit exceeds $1,000. But the real questions are do SNL's political skits influence the Presidential election? And if so, are these skits written for the purpose of influencing the Presidential election? I believe "Yes" and "Yes," respectively. It seems to me that Saturday Night Live's political skits have become Swift-Boat in nature. The skits started out attacking the Media for its coverage of Barack Obama's Campaign, but after criticism from Hillary Clinton, have evolved into outright attacks against Obama.
When SNL airs these political skits, they know that these skits will be used by mainstream Media to draw distinctions between the candidates and, more likely than not, used by Hillary Clinton to gain an elective edge. This is exemplified by the fact that during a National Debate, Clinton asked "Did you see Saturday Night Live? ... maybe we should give Barack a pillow." The very next week in response to Hillary's complaint and the public's perception that Hillary's personality is harsh and she is not likeable, SNL produced a skit where they addressed Hillary's personality. In the skit they said "*itches get things done" then followed with a call to Ohio and Texas to vote for Hillary. During the same week Rush Limbaugh made a call to his talk show listeners to go out and vote for Hillary, this was followed up by Bill Clinton appearing on the Rush Limbaugh show with a subtle appeal to Rush's listeners to vote for Hillary. Ohio and Texas then voted for Hillary. More recently a U.S. Representative, a man who sits in a position of public trust was heard making racist, defamatory and derogatory remarks in his official capacity on a radio talk show for the purpose of influencing the Presidential election. Now, I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh, and I don't watch Saturday Night Live, I only became aware of these incidents when I turn on primetime news expecting to hear news, commentary and analysis about the election, but instead was forced to watch comedy shows and listen to talk shows that were calling on people to make a political decision.
Now I don't have anything against comedy or talk shows that incorporate politics without bias, but I do have a problem with them being incorporated, on a regular basis, into prime-time news. My point is simply this ... if Comedy Shows or Talk Shows are going to get into the business of advocacy, then there needs to be some disclosures to this fact. In other words, if Saturday Night Live wants to walk like a PAC and talk like a PAC, by making a call to Ohio and Texas to vote for one candidate over the other, then they need to disclose themselves as a PAC and be regulated.