The California Fair Political Practices Commission announced today the official formation of a sub-committee to examine whether or not it adequately regulates campaign committees’ use of the Internet.

The FPPC, the state’s top watchdog over campaign finance law, intends to hold public hearings on the issue and has opened a Web site dedicated to the subject, where residents may submit comments on the subject and suggest rules.

“Political campaigning has changed a great deal since the creation of the Political Reform Act, in 1974,” said FPPC Chairman Ross Johnson in a press release. “We created this subcommittee to help the Commission determine if we should be doing more to help inform the public of who is paying to send out political messages. The subcommittee will focus its efforts on examining the use of electronic political communication by those groups already regulated by the FPPC and required to file campaign disclosure forms.”

FPPC spokesman Roman Porter stressed that the agency is not interested in regulating individual political speech on blogs, emails or social networking sites. Instead, the agency will examine whether or not it needs rules that reflect the growing reliance of campaign committees on the use of electronic electioneering. Much of this activity does not fall under the same disclosure rules as printed campaign materials.

Ross announced plans several months ago that he intended to form the Subcommittee on the Political Reform Act & Internet Political Activity. The FPPC will have public hearings early next year to take comments from residents and experts.

The California Republican Party took an instant dislike to the concept, however.

“The Internet remains largely free of government regulation, and I’m skeptical of any attempt by government to start regulating online content in the name of campaign finance,” said California GOP Chairman Ron Nehring in a press release. “An attempt by government to impose restrictions on Facebook pages, tweets, websites hosted on servers elsewhere on the globe, and the like promises to be an exercise in futility.  Government will never be able to keep up with changes in online communications, and its attempt to do so will only have a chilling effect on political discourse.”

(UPDATE 10:58 AM TUESDAY. A reader told me the Gavin Newsom flap was about Twitter, not Facebook. Another reader had told me it was Facebook. My apologies for the confusion. I’ve deleted the reference until I have a chance to sort out the details. LAV)

(UPDATE 2:19 P.M. FRIDAY. I tracked down the Gavin Newsom reference, which was about Twitter: http://iloveyougavinnewsom.com/2009/10/newsom-violating-campaign-law/)