Conservative Papa

The following is an excerpt from an email I just received from the Home School Legal Defense Association:

Last night, the U.S. Senate approved the Bennett amendment by a vote of 55-43. American citizens will remain free to organize and contact their congressional representatives without being forced to comply with federal regulation and oversight.

We have reports from Congress that your outpouring of calls made the difference.

Thank you so much for making the time and sacrifice to call your U.S. Senators asking them to support the Bennett Amendment to Senate Bill 1 (S. 1), the “Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007.”

The Bennett amendment removed section 220, the grassroots lobbying provision, from S. 1. Section 220 would have redefined lobbying to include “paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying.” Entities that engaged in grassroots lobbying would have had to comply with all federal lobbying disclosure laws, including registration with Congress and the filing of quarterly reports to Congress, or face serious consequences.

With the successful passage of the Bennett amendment, the Senate’s attempt to place federal control over virtually all grassroots lobbying activity has been defeated.

Immediately after the Bennett amendment passed, S. 1 was passed with amendments by a vote of 96-2.

HSLDA will continue to watch as this legislation goes to the House of Representatives. It is possible that a House version of this bill will again attempt to regulate grassroots lobbying. We will notify you if more calls are necessary.

The Bennett amendment would not have passed without the calls and support of you and millions of other concerned citizens. The senators who supported the amendment were very thankful for your calls and credited them with this victory.

I had wanted to post an entry on this important issue when I first heard about this egregious affront to free speech last week. This grassroots lobbying provision would have required churches, other organizations, and even websites (such as this blog) to register with Congress and fill out a bunch of paperwork before asking 500 or more of their members or readers to call Congress about an issue. Imagine me having to register with Congress just to exercise my right of free speech to get on this blog and tell my vast readership that they ought to call their representatives about an issue!

When HSLDA first told me about this, I called Senator Martinez. He voted for the Bennett Amendment to kill this provision, as I asked him to do. The phone at Senator Nelson’s office just rang and rang. He didn’t seem to care what I might have told him, and he voted to keep the grassroots lobbying provision. The margin of 55 to 43 by which the Bennett Amendment passed was far too slim for my comfort. Those who would slowly strip us of our rights in the name of “Legislative Accountability” lost this time, but we must be ever vigilant!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.