If It Was Good Enough to Work Against the Nazis . . . : Revitalizing the Foreign Agents Registration Act to Regulate Modern Foreign Electioneering

News headlines from the 2016 election to the present have described an ongoing political scandal that is unmatched in modern history: continued attempts of foreign interference in U.S. elections. It is fairly obvious that the United States lacks adequate restrictions to prevent foreign interference in U.S. elections. It therefore needs a law that—while passing constitutional scrutiny—prohibits more foreign political activity than what is currently covered, especially in relation to social media. This should be a simple and effective legislative fix, a return to the core aspects of the original Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) that focuses on potential electioneering of foreign actors in this modern medium. Because of judicial interpretations for federal campaign finance law, only a small portion of election interference efforts are currently prosecutable. On the other hand, while some new laws have been proposed—both in terms of foreign electioneering and regulating social media—none have addressed this important issue in a way that will stop the full range of potential election interference efforts. In addition, many of these legislative proposals needlessly address other concerns. Therefore, in order to properly address foreign interference in U.S. elections, a simpler, more effective legislative solution needs to be enacted; specifically, a revamped FARA that returns to its original core precepts while incorporating certain aspects of modern campaign finance law. This article proposes just such a thing.