Artist News Legal

Kid Rock won’t be fined for fake Senate campaign because it was fake

By | Published on Tuesday 27 November 2018

Kid Rock

The Federal Election Commission in the US has decided not to fine Kid Rock over his fake bid to run for Senate.

Kid Rock launched a website to promote his ‘election campaign’ last year and started selling merch emblazoned ‘Kid Rock For US Senate’. However, he never filed the paperwork required before he started campaigning, leading to an investigation into whether he’d broken US election laws by claiming to be running for a seat in Congress without having the formalities sorted out first.

For his part, Rock said that any allegation that he’d broken the law was “fake news”, because he never actually intended to run for political office. Having initially insisted that he was definitely going to enter politics, he then told Howard Stern that he wasn’t. It was all just promotion for his upcoming “patriotic, pro-American” tour.

However, the investigation into the potential breach of the law still went ahead, adding to the amount of time wasted on this whole endeavour. But the FEC has now ruled that the whole campaign was “an artistic and commercial undertaking that tied in with the theme of his upcoming album, related concert tour, and promotional materials”.

It adds that Rock “does not appear to have taken even the most basic steps to become a candidate”, but his First Amendment rights allow him to pretend that he intended to.

In conclusion, the Commission states: “Celebrities do not enjoy immunity from Commission enforcement. By the same token, the Commission must be cautious to avoid interference with the ‘unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes’. The free speech rights of many artists would be hollow indeed if, to avoid government investigation, they must parse their words when touching upon political issues and campaigns”.

So, like I said, it was all a waste of everyone’s time.



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