Senate Lobbying Reform bill could silence the Blogosphere
January 18th, 2007 | by Walter Greenspan |According to the statement by Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com, “Congress to Send Critics to Jail“, regarding legislation currently being considered by Congress to regulate grassroots communications:
“In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, but isn’t, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress.
“Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.”
11 Responses to “Senate Lobbying Reform bill could silence the Blogosphere”
By TMM on Jan 18, 2007 | Reply
Wow, I guess I better bone up on my shiv making.
By Chad on Jan 18, 2007 | Reply
As near as I can tell, registration is only required if money changes hands. All Section 220 seems to do is treat grassroots lobbyists more like normal professional lobbyists.
By Walter Greenspan on Jan 18, 2007 | Reply
Chad, here’s what the ACLU has to say about this.
By Walter Greenspan on Jan 18, 2007 | Reply
Here’s the direct link to the ACLU letter.
By Chad on Jan 18, 2007 | Reply
Walter,
I read the bill, I read the law it amends, and frankly — while I don’t mind that Amendment 20 passed, I think these groups were deliberately trying to pull bloggers in with a FUD campaign. It appears they were successful. Would bloggers be subject to the unamended law? As near as I could tell, only if they were paid to blog by a constituency that they blogged about. This, as we know from the last election cycle, is not unheard of, but it isn’t what I consider to be widespread practice. Perhaps I’m mistaken. Would GrassrootsFreedom.org and the ACLU be affected? My guesstimate is that they had more to gain than the blogging community as a whole from Amendment 20.
By darkman on Jan 18, 2007 | Reply
What happens if you take donations to operate your blog. If you were a conservative blog and you got donations from conservatives wouldn’t that make you a lobbyist?
Didn’t they already try to shut down a couple of churches because the ministers tried to suggest who would best represent the church memebers.
Another backdoor approach to censor the public.
By Steve on Jan 18, 2007 | Reply
Near as I can tell, the full weight and impact of any opinion that I may have has a net value of .02 cents.
By Chad on Jan 19, 2007 | Reply
Section 220 seemed to require some sort of consideration — as in, if I give you x, I expect y.
By Dave Budge on Jan 19, 2007 | Reply
Senator Roberts indtroduced an amendment that took out the “grassroots” clause. The amendment was passed by a majority of Republicans and only a few Democrats. Baucus voted yea and Tester voted nay.
Here’s the .
By Dave Budge on Jan 19, 2007 | Reply
Oops. Here’s the roll call vote:
Senate .gov
By Matt Singer on Jan 19, 2007 | Reply
I’ve looked over the law, too, and agree that it would only apply to bloggers who are being paid to use their blogs to lobby.
That makes sense to me. It seems like I should get to know whether the commentary I’m reading is pay-to-play. But under the language as drafted, I wouldn’t register.