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Time Running Out to Quash Lobbying Bill, Activist Warns Dave Eberhart, NewsMax "As you read this, the Senate is debating legislation that will silence many grass-roots organizations," warns Grassrootsfreedom.com Chairman Richard A. Viguerie.
Viguerie, direct-mail guru and author of "Conservatives Betrayed: How the Republican Party Hijacked the Conservative Cause," has sounded a clarion call about the lobbying initiative titled the "Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007," suggesting that the law "has a major Trojan horse."
"Section 220 of this bill requires grass-roots communications to be subject to onerous registration and reporting requirements that actually exceed what is required of the big Washington, D.C., lobbyists," Viguerie says.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has listed several legislative goals that she hopes will be accomplished in the first 100 session hours that the Democrats are in power in the new Congress. At the top of the list is this legislation, intended to curb the power of lobbyists -- but some, like Viguerie, are worried it may gag the grass-roots conservative movement. Story Continues Below
"The ... plan is perhaps the most comprehensive regulation of political speech ever proposed, and would make small grass-roots causes report quarterly to Congress -- the same as K Street lobbyists representing wealthy interests before Congress. Communications to as few as 500 citizens would trigger reporting under lobbying laws," Viguerie says.
"The reporting requirements and more severe penalties being written in response to recent congressional corruption scandals would apply to those who have no Washington lobbyists, who make no political contributions, and who do not provide gifts, travel or anything of value to politicians," Viguerie adds.
Viguerie argues that in his opinion, the thinly disguised intent of the enactment is to cripple the conservative movement, for which the grass-roots are often the best and sometimes the only means of affecting public policy.
He hopes concerned conservatives will be flooding Congress with petitions, e-mails and phone calls, all the while inspiring op-ed articles and calling into talk radio shows about what they see as dangerous flaws in the bill.
Already down the blitz pike is a letter to Public Citizen opposing the legislation. It is signed by 47 conservative and other leaders -- including Dave Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Paul Weyrich, a founder of the Heritage Foundation and coiner of the term "moral majority;" Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute; and Don Wildmon of American Family Association.
Public Citizen, a liberal government watchdog, has touted that it has helped Pelosi draft the legislation and wants lawmakers to adopt the Internal Revenue Service's definition of "lobbying," which includes communication that encourages the general public to contact a member of Congress on pending legislation or public policy.
Some controversial features of the bill:
Causing additional heartburn among the critics of the new law is a broad exemption they say is wholly unfair and unbalanced. Significantly, the reporting requirement spelled out above would not apply to messages targeted at an organization's members, employees, officers or shareholders. In effect, this would let most corporations, trade associations and unions off the reporting hook.
William J. Olson, the co-counsel for the Free Speech Coalition, summarized his impression of how the unfairness would operate:
"The Public Citizen/Pelosi bill would allow corporations, unions and even foreign interests to spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars mobilizing their shareholders, officers, employees and members, yet hide those expenditures," Olson opined.
"On the flipside, their bill would require real citizen associations to essentially obtain Congress's consent to communicate about important policy matters that impact on them. It's not just the imbalance that is wrong; it's a frontal attack on the First Amendment and political speech," Olson concluded.
Not all the Pelosi changes are as controversial as the new reporting requirements. In most quarters other initiatives to bridle lobbying are more welcomed -- including:
Viguerie tells NewsMax that he and others are truly fearful of what may roar in with this salient bill of the newly-empowered Democrats.
Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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