U.S Senate to Attempt to Kill Free Speech Tomorrow

The House has already passed the so-called DISCLOSE Act. The Senate will attempt to advance the bill tomorrow with a cloture vote on S. 3628 scheduled. National Right to Life calls DISCLOSE the “Deterring Speech about Congress except by Labor Organizations and Selected Elites” Act. We call it the Incumbent Protection Act.
You may recall that the House put cushy protections in DISCLOSE for labor unions and carved out a giant exception for the NRA. No such perks apply to National Right to Life and Wisconsin Right to Life. This Act would essentially dump our groups from participation in the election process. Essentially, DISCLOSE is attempting to strangle speech about federal candidates in the same manner that the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board is about to do by rule for state candidates. Civil and criminal penalties apply for simply participating in democracy.

These rules/measures are an attempt to reverse the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year in Citizens United. The rules/measures are blatantly unconstitutional. The problem is that we may be shut down for the 2010 and possibly the 2012 elections as various challenges, certain to be raised, wind their way through the court system. Let’s hope there are 41 brave Senators who will refuse to take this monstrous bill up.

Read entire NRLC letter to U.S. Senators urging a “no” vote on cloture here.

Read Susan Armacost’s op ed piece in yesterday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel here.

Barbara Lyons