This report discusses the constitutional issues that may arise with respect to a federal law that would require disclosures of efforts to stimulate so-called "grassroots" lobbying activities by those entities and persons who are compensated to engage in such activities. Activities which are generally described as efforts to stimulate "grassroots" lobbying (depending on the context of the term and/or the particular bill in question) are communications which are directed at members of the general public, or at more selected persons on mailing lists of organizations or other entities, which take specific positions on legislative matters pending before or public policy issues to be considered by the legislature, and which contain a so-called "call to action," that is, for example, urging the recipients of the communications to contact members of the legislature to favor or oppose legislative action on the issue. Currently, under federal law (the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 [LDA], as amended), registrations and disclosures by professional lobbyists are triggered and related only to so-called "direct" lobbying contacts with covered Government officials, and those activities which support those direct contacts. The current law's registration and reporting requirements are not separately triggered by "grassroots" lobbying activities. That is, an organization which engages only in "grassroots" lobbying, regardless of the extent of such "grassroots" lobbying activities, is not required to register its members, officers or employees who engage in those activities, and a lobbying firm or other outside lobbyist which conducts only "grassroots" lobbying campaigns on behalf of a client, regardless of the amount of compensation from the client or the amount of grassroots activities engaged in, does not need to register and report such activities or relationships under the LDA. Certain legislative proposals under consideration in the 110 th Congress had originally proposed to include disclosures of efforts to stimulate "grassroots" lobbying generally in two different ways. In the first instance, only those professional "lobbyists" who were already required to register under the LDA provisions (by virtue of their "direct" lobbying contacts) would have been additionally made to report certain efforts to stimulate "grassroots" lobbying for clients or employers over a certain amount. Secondly, certain entities which were compensated over a threshold amount ($25,000 or $50,000 in a calendar quarter, depending on the proposal) to engage in activities to stimulate "grassroots" lobbying on behalf of an outside client would have separately "triggered" registration and disclosure of such activities under the proposed amendments to LDA. Under either method of coverage, however, an organization which had engaged only in efforts to stimulate "grassroots" lobbying on behalf of itself, through its own employees, members, or volunteers, would have not been required to register and file disclosure reports. Neither the Senate bill, S. 1 , 110 th Congress, as introduced, nor the similar House version from the 109 th Congress, H.R. 4682 , 109 th Congress, would have changed the definition of a "lobbyist" who must register under LDA (that is, a "lobbyist" to be covered must have still made more than one direct "lobbying contact," which expressly excludes solicitations to stimulate grassroots lobbying ). The only additional registrants under these types of provisions would have been for "grassroots lobbying firms" which, as noted, would have covered only those entities compensated over a particular threshold amount by clients to stimulate grassroots lobbying efforts on the client's behalf. Even these somewhat limited and targeted disclosure proposals with respect to "grassroots" lobbying were not enacted into law. The "grassroots" lobbying disclosure provisions for registered professional lobbyists, and for commercial direct mail or public relations firms on behalf of outside clients ("grass roots lobbying firms"), which had been originally included in S. 1 , 110 th Congress, were struck from the Senate bill by a floor amendment, and the lobby reform legislation, the "Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007" ( P.L. 110-81 , 121 Stat. 735, September 14, 2007), was enacted without grassroots lobbying disclosure provisions. The question and issue of whether paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying should, at some point, be required to be publicly disclosed as part of a transparency and "open government" scheme, where the paid influences and pressures upon Members of Congress may be analyzed and reviewed by the electorate, continues to be of some import to certain government reform groups and persons both inside and outside of Congress. The following discussion analyzes the constitutional issues with respect to a federal requirement to report or disclose monies expended or received by professional lobbyists or commercial organizations for efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying by the public, or a certain segment of the public, regarding specific federal legislation or proposals before Congress. The activities involved in "lobbying," that is, persons individually or in association with one another engaging in, initiating and/or directing advocacy communications to public officials on political, social and economic issues of interest to those individuals and groups, have been found to be intertwined with and implicate several fundamental rights protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In Eastern Railroads President Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc. , the Supreme Court ruled that because of First Amendment considerations the prohibitions of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act could not reach the activities of rival businesses to prohibit them acting in concert to lobby legislatures for favorable transportation legislation. The Court noted that lobbying activities involve the "right of petition [which] is one of the freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights," and could not be restricted by statute without serious First Amendment implications. The Court explained the importance of lobbying activities in our representative form of government: In a representative democracy such as this, these branches of government act on behalf of the people and, to a very large extent, the whole concept of representation depends upon the ability of the people to make their wishes known to their representatives. The activities involved in lobbying, public advocacy and political expression about public policy issues, government and legislation, have been found by the Supreme Court to be among the most important freedoms in preserving an open democracy. The Court has thus noted the "profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide open," and has in the past explained that "expression on public issues 'has always rested on the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values.'" The Supreme Court has therefore found that any regulations imposed by Congress on such lobbying and advocacy activities may not unduly burden the exercise of participants' First Amendment rights. Even when a federal regulation on public policy advocacy involved merely a disclosure and reporting requirement, and not a restriction which directly limits or prohibits advocacy activities, such a regulation underwent a rigorous constitutional scrutiny since, as characterized by the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo , the Court has recognized the "deterrent effects on the exercise of First Amendment rights" which may arise "as an unintended but inevitable result of the government's conduct in requiring disclosure." The Supreme Court in NAACP v. Alabama overturned a State court contempt citation against the NAACP for that organization's failure to disclose its local membership list. Recognizing that "(e)ffective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association" and that, based upon the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, petition and assembly, the Constitution guarantees the "freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas," the Court noted the "chilling effect" that certain state actions, such as requiring the disclosure of membership lists, may have upon the exercise of those rights. There has additionally been recognized a constitutional protection for, as well as a longstanding tradition in our country of, anonymous political speech and pamphleteering. In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission , the Supreme Court overturned a State statute requiring that the author of a pamphlet or political document place his or her name and home address on the document when the material was distributed in relation to an upcoming election/referendum on taxes. The Court found that the purpose of the identification law in Ohio was to prevent "fraud and libel" in campaign literature, and to provide information to the voter, but that requiring the author to put his or her name and address on the literature was inherently chilling, did not provide for most voters generally useful information, and did not sufficiently promote the governmental interests asserted as its justification. The Supreme Court has thus recognized the potential threat of the "chilling" of First Amendment rights in disclosure statutes which require identifications of those responsible for issue-oriented advocacy and persuasion concerning public policy and political issues. However, it has been noted as a general principle that although First Amendment rights "are fundamental, they are not in their nature absolute"; and the federal courts have increasingly upheld statutory regulation in the area of lobbying and campaign disclosures against facial challenges when, on balance, the governmental interest asserted in the regulation is significant, when possible limitations on First Amendment rights are only indirect (as in disclosure statutes), and where the statute in question is drawn with sufficient precision so as to promote and be relevant to the interests asserted as the statute's justification. The Government's asserted interests in preserving the integrity of fundamental governmental processes, such as the legislative process, and protecting such proceedings from corruption and undue influences from those who are paid specifically to influence them has been long recognized as a significant, important and compelling governmental interest. These interests of promoting and protecting the integrity of governmental processes from corruption and undue influences, of shedding light on the workings of Government, and in preserving the confidence of the public in the integrity and basic fairness of our democratic institutions are the interests that have informed the decisions permitting, in the field of lobbying regulation (as well as in some areas of campaign finance regulation), required disclosures, reporting, and identifications which, out of the context of professional "lobbying" or campaign finance, might otherwise be problematic from a First Amendment prospective.