Pelosi vs Free Speech

First you have John McCain trying to shut down bloggers using a “child porn” scare tactic. Now you have Nancy Pelosi going after “grass roots” movements. How liberal of her. Isn’t it nice to know the Dems care so much about the people?

House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) has pledged to take up a lobbying reform proposal that would impose new regulations on speech by grassroots organizations, while providing a loophole in the rules for large corporations and labor unions.

The legislation would make changes to the legal definition of “grassroots lobbying” and require any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact their elected representatives to file a report with detailed information about their organization to the government on a quarterly basis.

The report would include identifying the organization’s expenditures, the issues focused on and the members of Congress and other federal officials who are the subject of the advocacy efforts. A separate report would be required for each policy issue the group is active on.

“Right now, grassroots groups don’t have to report at all if they are communicating with the public,” said Dick Dingman of the Free Speech Coalition, Inc. “This is an effort that would become a major attack on the 1st Amendment.”

The Democrats are no more the friends of free speech than the Republicans, but they are in some ways worse. And here’s a classic example. For all the screeching and hollering about Bush trying to take away our rights, the very people Democrats and lefties turned to may turn out to be much worse. 

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