McCain, Shays, and Meehan Attack Free Speech Yet Again
In their continuing campaign against the First Amendment, Senator John McCain and Congressmen Chris Shays and Martin Meehan have introduced legislation to limit the rights of grassroots activists to encourage citizens to contact their elected representatives. S. 2128 (McCain), HR 4575 (Shays), and HR 2412 (Meehan) would each so heavily burden grassroots lobbying organizations that only the richest groups would be able to survive.
"They are trying to call this lobbying reform, but it really is the exact opposite," said Public Advocate President Eugene Delgaudio. "These measures aim to shut down grassroots organizations that serve as watch dogs. These are not groups that are spending millions flying members of congress to exotic destinations in order to secure their votes on pork-barrel spending projects, but rather groups that let the public know what congress' latest hair-brain-scheme is. These Senators and congressional members must learn that it is not the average citizen and the First Amendment that is the danger to democracy, but rather there own greed and lack of self-restraint."
Public Advocate encourages-while it still can-all Americans who respect the First Amendment to call their Senators and members of congress and ask them to defeat these outrageous restrictions on freedom of speech.