Dear Conservative Leader,
As you may know, Section 220 of S1, the lobby reform bill, would effectively silence many grassroots organizations by subjecting them to onerous registration and reporting requirements which actually exceed what is required of the big lobbyists in Washington, D.C.
Now, Senators Robert Bennett (R-UT), John Cornyn (R-TX), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have co-sponsored Amendment 20 to S 1, which would remove Section 220 from the bill.
Please call both of your United States senators and tell them to support Amendment 20 to S 1, to delete the regulations on grassroots communications from the lobbying reform bill. Here’s what you can say when you call:
I oppose efforts to regulate my First Amendment rights and to silence critics of Congress.
Please vote for Amendment 20 sponsored by Senator Bennett and others to remove Section 220 from S. 1, the lobbying reform bill.
As NewsMax.com reports on this crucial matter, time is running out.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/1/11/220628.shtml?s=lh
I’ve created a website, GrassrootsFreedom.com, to help citizens fight efforts to silence us.
After you have called your two senators, I urge you to go to sign our petition at
http://www.grassrootsfreedom.com/gw3/petition/petition.php?PetitionID=25
Also, certain big Washington-based special interest groups are spreading lies about this legislation to misinform the public.
Here’s a letter, written by a lawyer with great technical knowledge of this issue. It’s written with some “legalese,” but it decimates the lies being told to hurt the grassroots.
http://www.grassrootsfreedom.com/gw3/articles-news/articles.php?action=view&CMSArticleID=485&CMSCategoryID=23
So call both of your senators, then visit GrassrootsFreedom.com
Also, please forward this message to your friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers.
Cordially,
Richard A. Viguerie
9625 Surveyor Court, Suite 400
Manassas, Virginia 20110
Heh. "Dear Conservative Leader". If I'm a "Conservative Leader", then the right has a lot to worry about.
But every now and then, the libertarian right and the personal freedom left find themselves on the same side, so I did a search on this amendment, and found that ONLY right-wing groups: The John Birch Society, the Freepers -- really hard-right groups were having canniptions about this. I know that there's been some talk of late of making bloggers responsible for what people write in their comments and such, so I figured I'd take a look at the legislation. Based on my reading, what the Republicans (who didn't care at all about protecting people who criticized Congress when THEY were in charge) are all up in arms about is that section 220 seems to seek to curb "astroturfing" -- corporations, or companies that represent corporations, setting up front groups that look to be grassroots organizations. An example of this is "Hands Off the Internet", an organization funded by the telecommunication companies and headed by Clintonista Mike McCurry.
It was early in the morning, and I couldn't make heads nor tails of the legalese therein, so I called upon B@B's Official Resident Expert on All Things Constitutional, Camille Abate of CAJA Institute, who replied as follows:
I just read section 220 of Senate Bill 1. I'm going to copy the critical part here, and then I'll comment on it.
The important part:
(18) PAID EFFORTS TO STIMULATE GRASSROOTS LOBBYING-
`(A) IN GENERAL- The term `paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying' means any paid attempt in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client to influence the general public or segments thereof to contact one or more covered legislative or executive branch officials (or Congress as a whole) to urge such officials (or Congress) to take specific action with respect to a matter described in section 3(8)(A), except that such term does not include any communications by an entity directed to its members, employees, officers, or shareholders.
`(B) PAID ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE THE GENERAL PUBLIC OR SEGMENTS THEREOF- The term `paid attempt to influence the general public or segments thereof' does not include an attempt to influence directed at less than 500 members of the general public.
`(C) REGISTRANT- For purposes of this paragraph, a person or entity is a member of a registrant if the person or entity--
`(i) pays dues or makes a contribution of more than a nominal amount to the entity;
`(ii) makes a contribution of more than a nominal amount of time to the entity;
`(iii) is entitled to participate in the governance of the entity;
`(iv) is 1 of a limited number of honorary or life members of the entity; or
`(v) is an employee, officer, director or member of the entity.
`(19) GRASSROOTS LOBBYING FIRM- The term `grassroots lobbying firm' means a person or entity that--
`(A) is retained by 1 or more clients to engage in paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying on behalf of such clients; and
`(B) receives income of, or spends or agrees to spend, an aggregate of $25,000 or more for such efforts in any quarterly period.'
...okay, here's the easiest way to explain it. Unlike moveon.org, DFA, or the ACLU, the targeted groups have clients who pay them. More like an advertising agency... Colgate Palmolive goes to its ad agency and asks them to advertise a product. They give the ad agency money, and the ad agency does its research, targets the audience, and tries to reach them and persuade them to buy the product.
Well, here, the "grassroots lobbying firm" is like a political advertising aency...it has a client -- let's say it's AT&T who wants to get rid of net neutrality. AT&T pays its political ad agency $1.5 million to reach ordinary Americans and get them to either sign a petition to their legislatures, write postcards to their legislatures, organize a protest march, whatever. The "grassroots lobbying firm" takes the money, and then does what moveon.org does or DFA does -- only they don't need to go to the pool for contributions because they have the money already, they just need their targeted Americans to do whatAmericans usually do for a cause -- petition the
government.
The argument for section 220 is, it's not an attack on the First Amendment's right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, it's a way of making sure
that AT&T and whatever grassroots lobbying firm is working for AT&T come clean and make clear that the money for the effort came from a corporation, and this is no real grassroots action.
HOWEVER, the argument against section 220 is -- and it's a good argument, in my opinion -- that whatever money AT&T or whoever gave to the lobbying firm
doesn't matter...because the end result is ordinary Americans, whether you like their politics or point of view or not, exercise their right to petition the
government for a redress of grievances under the First Amendment. And why shouldn't they get the information to enable them to do that, whether it's paid for by
AT&T or not? We get hit with advertising all the time, it doesn't force us to go to the store and buy the product. Why aren't they entitled, if they're on some kind of listserv that they want to be on, to be reached by the grassroots lobbying firm? Is Section 220's reporting requirements an attempt to chill the right to give information to people?
On the other hand (I could go on and on here), these ordinary Americans could scout out this information for themselves, instead of relying on paid AT&T grassroots lobbyists who will possibly twist the facts and provide false information. That's one of the real dangers.
However, as Jefferson said, in a marketplace of ideas, if you let all ideas float, the quality ones will float to the top.
ON THE OTHER HAND, these grassroots lobbying firms have an advantage over those who are really grassroots and have no money to get their message out easily, and
should they be allowed to have such easy access without reporting the source of the money that gives them such easy access -- and which also might make those ordinary Amerians on the right angry to know that they are really being manipulated by AT&T?
Okay, so there's a part of both sides, I'm sure if you think about it you can come up with more arguments for each side! It's not so clear cut as it seems in terms
of the Constitution...and, as I always say, it's another example of how things get sloppy and could damage our system when you rush legislation through.
Because I am not a Constitutional scholar, I'm inclined toward disclosure of such financial arrangements. It's funny how the right made such a ruckus about Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas' alleged paid affiliations with Howard Dean's campaign -- an affiliation about which he was quite forthcoming, by the way. But when it comes to trying to have some kind of "truth in advertising" about just whom is behind groups that claim to be "grassroots", then they scream "free speech". In other words, it's OK to be funded by the right, but not OK to be funded by the left.
Well, count me in favor of disclosure. I want to know that a group called "Hands off the Internet" is actually a front group for Big Telecom, because it helps me frame their arguments in context as I evaluate them. I don't think that in any way inhibits free speech, nor does it inhibit their right to create these "astroturf" groups -- it just means that we know whom we're reading.
And by the way, by way of disclosure about who's behind CAJA Institute -- it's right now about fifteen or so highly dedicated people who care deeply about the erosion of our freedoms in the United States under George W. Bush. No giant corporation with an agenda, nor George Soros, nor any other favorite boogeyman of the right, is behind it.
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