Date: 2010-06-16
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Madam Speaker. I take these 5 minutes to speak on a subject that is of utmost importance but that does not regularly get discussed here on the floor. which is the First Amendment to the Constitution. that part of it which deals with freedom of speechthat is. with freedom of political speech. Now. obviously. the First Amendment of the Constitution does not merely protect political speech. but in the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. known as Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission. the Supreme Court noted that the First Amendment has its fullest and most urgent application to speech uttered during a campaign for political office. In other words. they said. if you look at the essence of the First Amendment protection. it goes. first and foremost. to political speech. They had this in laying the premise for the decision that they came to because the Supreme Court realized that the First Amendments protection for political speech had been under assault by various pieces of legislation passed by this body. not that it was done for evil purposes or intentionally to undercut the Constitution of the United States. rather. it was done in a goodfaith effort to try and deal with political campaigns and with the position of money in political campaigns. The Supreme Court decided back in the 1970s. in Buckley vs. Valeo. that money is speech. meaning that the money you have you can use as you see fit to further your speech. You can print pamphlets. you can buy a megaphone. you can buy a radio ad. you can buy a television ad. you can hire somebody to represent your interest to appear in an ad for you. In other words. the Supreme Court recognized that. in the way that we communicate. oftentimes. it takes the use of money to further that communication. So they made a decision at that point in time that. by terms of the First Amendment. you could not stop one from using ones money to express ones point of view. Then they went to the point of asking. But how does that apply when you are giving money to a candidate? In those instances. the Court said that the government might be able to put some restrictions on speechthat is the use of moneybut only if it is for the purpose of avoiding the corruption of the process. That is the only basis upon which the government can put some limitations. or parameters. around political speech. In the Citizens United case. they had to decide: As people individually and as associated with othersand the First Amendment talks about freedom of associationwhat are they allowed to do. permitted to do. protected under the First Amendment. when they expend funds to express a point of view during a period of time that is close to an election? That is why the Court said that First Amendment freedoms are at their height when the speaker is addressing matters of public policy. politics and governance and has its fullest and most urgent application to speech uttered during a campaign for political office. because that is the point in time when you might have the most influence on your fellow citizens. Now. what does this have to do with what we are doing here on the floor? Well. there is a bill that has been introduced. called the DISCLOSE ActDemocracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act. We are led to believe by the majority that all this does is promote disclosure. Yet. in fact. what it does under its very terms is chill political speech. so much so that the National Rifle Association came out with a large complaint about the bill. saying that it would have an undue burden on its operations in expressing itself and would intimidate membership. Now. some people scoffed at it and said. Well. its the National Rifle Association talking again. But what happened? We have found that the majority listening to the National Rifle Association has created a specific exemption for that group and for others similarly situated. but not for others. That is the crux of the question: Do we have a situation in which now we say not only too big to fail but. for some. too big to file? It is an affront to the First Amendment. and my hope is that we will not bring this bill to the floor. because. of all things. we should be most protective of the speech of our fellow citizens when they engage in political debate.