Last night a majority of the U.S. House voted for H.R. 1606
. Unlike most legislation, the bill is easy to understand and easier to read. It is called the Online Freedom of Speech Act. Unfortunately, it was brought to the floor on the suspension calendar and did not achieve the requisite 2/3 majority for passage under suspension.
Its one sentence says, “Paragraph (22) of section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: `Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.’.”
The idea is to keep the Internet generally, and bloggers specifically, free from the meddlesome regulations of the FEC. Mind you, when the issue of political speech on the Internet went to the FEC, the commission voted to exempt the Internet from the federal campaign finance laws. Unfortunately, a federal court disagreed, and thus, the reason for H.R. 1606.
WashTimes has the story here.
Regardless of how you dress up the situation, restrictions on political speech are a barrier to entry (to the marketplace of ideas in a democracy). They curtail citizens’ rights to property — limiting how money can be spent. For what it’s worth, the Congressional Record documents the “yeas” and “nays” for posterity.
The North Carolina delegation split evenly. Voting against speech were Butterfield, Price, Coble, McIntyre, Watt and Miller. Voting for speech were Jones, Foxx, Hayes, Myrick, McHenry and Taylor. Etheridge was one of 26 representatives who did not vote.
