Dems Target Free Speech -- Again
CitizenLink ^ | 2-22-2007 | Wendy Cloyd



Dems Target Free Speech -- Again by Wendy Cloyd, assistant editor
Liberals won’t stop trying to muzzle critics.


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her radical allies in the U.S. House want to impose burdensome regulations on grassroots activists and the lawmakers they hope to influence.


Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate rejected the grassroots provision in its lobbying-reform bill. Senate bill 1 initially included language that would have mandated oppressive reporting standards for grassroots-lobbying groups. That language was removed after hundreds of thousands of people complained to their Senators.


And once again people are being asked to tell Congress, "We have a right to be heard."


Tom McClusky, vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Council, said the Senate victory doesn't mean the issue is moot. He anticipates Pelosi, a California Democrat, will introduce a similar provision in the House.


"But the Pelosi bill is probably going to be even more onerous," McClusky said. "It's going to have a lot of reporting."


It would make grassroots organizations so busy with reporting every move they make, he said, that it would discourage them from doing anything to inform people about the issues.


"If I ran into a Hill staffer in the supermarket, I would have to report that to the federal government," he noted.


In the meantime, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has introduced ethics-reform legislation that takes aim at the executive branch.


Waxman claims his bill "promotes openness and accountability in government by banning secret meetings between lobbyists representing special interests and senior government officials." But experts say any citizen communication to a government official on a policy matter would require documentation in a public database.


"I would basically have to walk around Washington, D.C., with blinders on," McClusky said.


Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said the bill would hamstring government officials when they feel the need to seek advice from outside sources.


"The individual contacted by the public official would be aware that their conversation would now become a matter of public record," he said. "The citizen might be unwilling to offer candid advice to the official, fearing negative ramifications for his business, his tenure prospects or his family relationships -- to cite just a few ways in which a 'chilling effect' would occur."


An e-mail sent by a concerned citizen, contact with a sign-holding protester, a casual encounter in a church pew -- all would be logged into a government database. Even advice from a spouse would be covered under Waxman's bill, Johnson said.


As the House prepares to look at the issue, Banks said members need to attend to the real issue.


“Instead of focusing on the executive branch as the Waxman bill does, or on grassroots activism, as the Pelosi bill is expected to," she said, "the House should focus on the location of the real need for lobbying reform: the U.S. Congress.”


(Paid for by Focus on the Family Action)